u

LUCASlMALET

"H'>i2-

THE HISTORY OF
SIR RICHARD CALMADY

10 xsimeiH hhY

Copyright^ igoi
; By Dodd, Mead & Company

A Vj ^ } / n . . / , ^ jx J-i i t. c. X wit I . i I

CONTENTS ^^

BOOK I

THE CLOWN

/

««Ar. FAGS

X. Acquainting the Reader with a Fair Domain and the Maker

Thereof X

II. Giving the Very Earliest Information Obtainable; of the Hero of

this Book 7

III. Touching Matters Clerical and Controversial i^

IV. Raising Problems which it is the Purpose of this History to

Resolve 25

V. In which Julius March Beholds the Vision of the New Life . . 34

VI, Accident or Destiny, According to Your Humour 44

Vn. Mrs. William Ormiston Sacrifices a Wine-glass to Fate .... 57

VIII, Enter a Child of Promise 69

IX. In which Katherine Calmady Looks on Her Son 76

X. The Birds of the Air Take Their Breakfast 84

BOOK II

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS

I. Recording some Aspects of a Small Pilgrim's Progress .... 95
II. In which Our Hero Improves His Acquaintance with Many

f Things — Himself Included 104

III. Concerning that which, Thank God, Happens Almost Every

Day 117

TV. Which Smells very Vilely of the Stable 128

V. In which Dickie is Introduced to a Little Dancer with Blush-
roses in Her Hat 140

VI. Dealing with a Physician of the Body and a Physician or the

Soul 149

VIL An Attempt to Make the Best of It 15$

VIII. Telling, Incidentally, of a Broken-down Postboy and a Country

Fair 169

V

48998

CONTENTS

BOOK III

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

I. In which Our Hero's World Grows Sensibly Wider l8l

II, Telling How Dickie's Soul was Somewhat Sick, and How He

Met Fair Women on the Confines of a Wood 1 86

III. In which Richard Confirms One Judgment and Reverses An-

other 195

IV. Julius March Bears Testimony 203

V. Telling How Queen Mary»s Crystal Ball Came to Fall on the

Gallery Floor 215

VI. In which Dickie Tries to Ride Away from His Own Shadow,

with Such Success as Might Have Been Anticipated .... 231
VII. Wherein the Reader is Courteously Invited to Improve His Ac- .

quaintance with Certain Persons of Quality .^40

VIII. Richard Puts His Hand to a Plough from which There is no

Turning Back ^52

IX. Which Touches Incidentally on Matters of Finance 264

X. Mr. Ludovic Quayle Among the Prophets 2S0

XI. Containing Samples Both of Earthly and Heavenly Love . . . 289

BOOK IV

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP

I. Lady Louisa Bark'ing Traces the Finger of Providence .... 302
II. Telling How Vanity Fair Made Acquaintance with Richard

Calmady 314

III. In which Katherine Tries to Nail Up the Weather-glass to Set

Fair 32^

IV. A Lesson Upon the Eleventh Commandment — " Parents Obey

Your Children '* 337

V. Iphigenia 350

VI. In which Honoria St. Quentin Takes the Field 36?

VII. Recording the Astonishing Valour Displayed by a Certain Small

Mouse in a Corner '37S

VIII. A Manifestation of the Spirit 386

IX. In which Dickie Shakes Hands with the Devil 397

CONTENTS vu

BOOK V
RAKE'S PROGRESS

I, In which the Reader is Courteously Entreated to Grow Older

by the Space of Some Four Years, and to Sail Southward Hot

Away 41"

II. Wherein Time is Discovered to Have Worked Changes .... 429
in. Helen de Vallorbes Apprehends Vexatious Complications . . . 438

IV. « Mater Admirabilis '* 447

V. Exit Camp 455

VI. In which M. Paul Destournelle Has the Bad Taste to Threaten

to Upset the Apple-cart 469

VH. Splendide Mendax 479.

VIII. Helen de Vallorbes Learns Her Rival's Name 490

IX. Concerning that Daughter of Cupid and Psyche Whom Men

Call Voluptas 506

X. The Abomination of Desolation 511

XI. In which Dickie Goes to the End of the World and Looks Over

the Wall 526

BOOK VI
THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH

I, Miss St. Quentin Bears Witness to the Faith that is in Her . . 544

II. Telling How, Once Again, Katherine Calmady Looked on He^

Son 555

in. Concerning a Spirit in Prison 566

IV. Dealing with Matters of Hearsay and Matters of Sport .... 575
V. Telling How Dickie Came to Untie a Certain Tag of Rusty,

Black Ribbon 588

VL A Litany of the Sacred Heart 600

VH. Wherein Two Enemies are Seen to Cry Quits 61 1

VHL Concerning the Brotherhood Founded by Richard Calmady, and

Other Matters of Some Interest 628

IX. Telling How Ludovic Quayle and Honoria St. Quentin Watched

the Trout Rise in the Long Water 639

X. Concerning a Day of Honest Warfare and a Sunset Harbinger

Not of the Night But of the Dawn 655

XI. In which Richard Calmady Bids the Long-suffering Reader
^ Farewell $j^

rt i i/ui\ AUJ

s'jnni-'fTj;

The History of
Sir Richard Calmady

BOOK I

THE CLOWN
CHAPTER I

ACQUAINTING THE READER WITH A FAIR DOMAIN ANI>
THE MAKER THEREOF

TN that fortunate hour of English history, when the cruel
-*- sights and haunting insecurities of the Middle Ages had
passed away, and while, as yet, the fanatic zeal of Puritanism
had not cast its blighting shadow over all merry and pleasant
things, it seemed good to one Denzil Calmady, esquire, to
build himself a stately red-brick and freestone house upon the
southern verge of the great plateau of moorland which ranges
northward to the confines of Windsor Forest and eastward to
the Surrey Hills. And this he did in no vainglorious spirit,
with purpose of exalting himself above the county gentlemen,
his neighbours, and showing how far better lined his pockets
were than theirs. Rather did he do it from an honest love of
all that is ingenious and comely, and as the natural outgrowth
of an inquiring and philosophic mind. For Denzil Calmady,

2 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

like so many another son of that happy age, was something
more than a mere wealthy country squire, breeder of beef and
brewer of ale. He was a courtier and traveler ; and, if tradi-
tion speaks truly, a poet who could praise his mistress's many
charms, or wittily resent her caprices, in well-turned verse.
He was a patron of art, having brought back ivories and
bronzes from Italy, pictures and china from the Low Coun-
tries, and enamels from France. He was a student, and col-
lected the many rare and handsome leather-bound volumes
telling of curious arts, obscure speculations, half-fabulous his-
tories, voyages, and adventures, which still constitute the
almost unique value of the Brockhurst library. He might
claim to be a man of science, moreover — of that delectable
old-world science which has no narrow-minded quarrel with
miracle or prodigy, wherein angel and demon mingle freely,
lending a hand unchallenged to complicate the operations both
of nature and of grace — a science which, even yet, in perfect
good faith, busied itself with the mysteries of the Rosy Cross,
mixed strange ingredients into a possible Elixir of Life, ran far
afield in search for the Philosopher's Stone, gathered herbs for
the confection of simples during auspicious phases of the moon,
and beheld in comet and meteor awful forewarnings of public
calamity or of Divine Wrath.

From all of which it may be premised that when, like the
wise king, of old, in Jerusalem, Denzil Calmady " builded hin>
houses, made him gardens and orchards, and planted trees in
them of all kind of fruits"; when he "made him pools of
water to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees " ;
when he "gathered silver and gold and the treasure of prov-
inces," and got him singers, and players of musical instru-
ments, and " the delights of the sons of men," — he did so that,
having tried and sifted all these things, he might, by the exer-
cise of a ripe and untrammeled judgment, decide what
amongst them is illusory and but as a passing show, and what
— be it never so small a remnant — has in it the promise of
eternal subsistence, and therefore of vital worth ; and that,
having so decided and thus gained an even mind, he might
prepare serenely to take leave of the life he had dared so
largely to live.

Commencing his labours at Brockhurst during the closing
years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Denzil Calmady com-

THE CLOWN 3

pleted them in 1611 with a royal house-warming. For the
space of a week, during the autumn of that year, — the last
autumn, as it unhappily proved, that graceful and scholarly
prince was fated to see,^ — Henry, Prince of Wales, conde-
scended to be his guest. He was entertained at Brockhurst —
as contemporary records inform the curious — with " much
feastinge and many joyous masques and gallant pastimes," in-
cluding " a great slayinge of deer and divers beastes and fowl
in the woods and coverts thereunto adjacent." It is added,
with unconscious irony, that his host, being a "true lover of
all wild creatures, had caused a fine bear-pit to be digged be-
yond the outer garden wall to the west." And that, on the
Sunday afternoon of the Prince's visit, there " was held a most
mighty baitinge," to witness which " many noble gentlemen
of the neighbourhood did visit Brockhurst and lay there two
nights."

Later it is reported of Denzil Calmady, who was an excel-
lent churchman, — suspected even, notwithstanding his little
turn for philosophy, of a greater leaning towards the old Mass-
Book than towards the modern Book of Common Prayer, —
that he notably assisted Laud, then Bishop of St. David's, in
respect of certain delicate diplomacies. Laud proved not un-
grateful to his friend ; who, in due time, was honoured with
one of King James's newly instituted baronetcies, not to men-
tion some few score seedling Scotchfirs, which, taking kindly to
the light moorland soil, increased and multiplied exceedingly
and sowed themselves broadcast over the face of the surround-
ing country.

And, save for the vigorous upgrowth of those same fir trees,
and for the fact that bears and bear-pit had long given place to
race-horses and to a great square of stable buildings in the hol-
low lying back from the main road across the park, Brock-
hurst was substantially the same in the year of grace 1842,
when this truthful history actually opens, as it had been when
Sir Denzil's workmen set the last tier of bricks of the last
twisted chimney-stack in its place. The grand, simple masses
of the house — Gothic in its main lines, but with much of
Renaissance work in its details — still lent themselves to the
same broad effects of light and shadow, as it crowned the
southern and western sloping hillside amid its red-walled gar-
<lens and pepper-pot summer-houses, its gleaming ponds and

4^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

watercourses, its hawthorn dotted paddocks ; its ancient ave-
nues of ehn, of lime, and oak. The same panelings and
tapestries clothed the walls of its spacious rooms and passages ;
the same quaint treasures adorned its fine Italian cabinets ;
the same air of large and generous comfort pervaded it. As
the child of true lovers is said to bear through life, in a certain
giad beauty of person and of nature, witness to the glad hour
of its conception, so Brockhurst, on through the accumulating
years, still bore witness to the fortunate historic hour in which
it was planned.

Yet, since in all things material and mortal there is always
a little spot of darkness, a germ of canker, at least the echo of
a cry of fear — lest life being too sweet, man should grow
proud to the point of forgetting he is, after all, but a pawn
upon the board, but the sport and plaything of destiny and the
vast purposes of God— all was not quite well with Brock-
hurst. At a given moment of time, the diabolic element had
of necessity obtruded itself. And, in the chronicles of this de-
lightful dwelling-place, even as in those of Eden itself, the
angels are proven net to have had things altogether their own
gracious way.

v,The pierced stone parapet, which runs round three sides of
the house, and constitutes, architecturally, one of its most note-
worthy features, is broken in the centre of the north front by
^ tall-, stepped and sharply pointed gable, flanked on either
hand by slender, four-sided pinnacles. From the niche in the
said gable, arrayed in sugar-loaf hat, full doublet and trunk
hose, his head a trifle bent so that the tip of his pointed beard
rests on the pleatings of his marble ruff, a carpenter's rule in
his right hand. Sir Denzil Calmady gazes meditatively down.
Delicate, coral-hke tendrils of the Virginian creeper, which
covers the house walls, and strays over the bay windows of the
Long Gallery below, twine themselves yearly about his ankles
and his square-toed shoes. The swallows yearly attempt to
fix their gray, mud nests against the flutings of the scallop-
shell canopy sheltering his bowed head ; and are yearly
-ejected by cautious gardeners armed with imposing array of
ladders and conscious of no little inward reluctance to face the
clangers of so aerial a height.

And here, it may not be unfitting to make further mention
of that same little spot of darkness, germ of canker, echo of

THE CLOWN c

the cry of fear, that had come to mar the fair records of Block-
hurst. For very certain it was that among the varying scenes,
moving merry or majestic, upon which Sir Denzil had looked
down during the two and a quarter centuries of his sojourn in
the lofty niche of the northern gable, there was one his eyes
had never yet rested upon — -one matter, and that a very vital
one, to which had he applied his carpenter's, rule the measure
of it must have proved persistently and grievously short.

Along the straight walks, across the smooth lawns, and be-
side the brilliant flower-borders of the formal gardens, he had
seen generations of babies toddle and stagger, with gurglings
of delight, as they clutched at glancing bird or butterfly far out
of reach. He had seen healthy, clean-limbed, boisterous lads
and dainty, little maidens laugh and play, quarrel, kiss, and be
friends again. He had seen ardent lovers — in glowing June
twilights, while the nightingales shouted from the laurels, or
from the coppices in the park below — driven to the most des-
perate straits, to visions of cold poison, of horse-pistols, of
immediate enlistment, or the consoling arm.s of Betty the
housemaid, by the coquetries of some young lady captivating
in powder and patches, or arrayed in the high-waisted, agree-
ably-revealing costume which our grandmothers judged it not
improper to wear in their youth. He had seen husband and
wife, too, wandering hand in hand at first, tenderly hopeful
and elate. And then, sometimes, as the years lengthened,^^—
they growing somewhat sated with the ease of their high es-
tate,— he had seen them hand in hand no longer, waxing cold
and indifferent, debating even, at moments, reproachfully
whether they might not have invested the capital of their affec-
tions to better advantage elsewhere.

All this and much more Sir Denzil had seen, and doubtless
measured, for all that he appears so immovably calm and apart.
But that which he had never yet seen was a man of his name
and race, full of years and honours, come slowly forth from
the stately house to sun himself, morning or evening, in the
comfortable shelter of the high, red-brick, rose-grown garden
walls. Looking the while, with the pensive resignation of old
age, at the goodly, wide-spreading prospect. Smiling again
over old jokes, warming again over old stories of prowess with
horse and hound, or rod and gun. Feeling the eyes moisten
again at the memory of old loves, and of those far-away first

^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

embraces which seemed to open the gates of paradise and cre-
ate the world anew ; at remembrances of old hopes too, which
proved still-born, and of old distresses, which often enough
proved still-born likewise, — the whole of these simplified now,
sanctified, the tumult of them stilled, along with the hot, young
blood which went to make them, by the kindly torpor of in-
creasing age and the approaching footsteps of greatly reconcil-
ing Death.

For Sir Denzil's male descendants, one and all, — so says
tradition, so say too the written and printed family records, the
fine monuments in the chancel of Sandyfield Church, and more
than one tombstone in the yew-shaded church-yard, — have dis-
played a disquieting incapacity for living to the permitted
" threescore years and ten," let alone fourscore, and dying de-
cently, in ordinary, commonplace fashion, in their beds.
Mention is made of casualties surprising in number and vari-
ety ; and not always, it must be owned, to the moral credit of
those who suffered them. It is told how Sir Thomas, grand-
son of Sir Denzil, died miserably of gangrene, caused by a tear
in the arm from the antler of a wounded buck. How his
nephew Zachary — who succeeded him — was stabbed during a
drunken brawl in an eating-house in the Strand. How the
brother of the said Zachary, a gallant young soldier, was killed
at the battle of Ramillies in 1706. Dueling, lightning during
a summer storm, even the blue-brown waters of the Brock-
hurst Lake in turn claim a victim. Later it is told how a
second Sir Denzil, after hard fighting to save his purse, was
shot by highwaymen on Bagshot Heath, when riding with a
couple of servants — not notably distinguished, as it would ap-
pear, for personal valour — from Brockhurst up to town.

Lastly comes Courtney Calmady, who, living in excellent
repute until close upon sixty, seemed destined by Providence
to break the evil chain of the family fate. But he too goes
the way of all flesh, suddenly enough, after a long run with the
hounds, owing to the opening of a wound, received when he
was little more than a lad, at the taking of Frenchtown under
General Proctor, during the second American war. So he too
died, and they buried him with much honest mourning, as be-
fittod so kindly and honourable a gentleman ; and his son
Richard — of whom more hereafter — reigned in his stead.

THE CLOWN

CHAPTER II

GIVING THE VERY EARLIEST INFORMATION OBTAINABLE OF
THE HERO OF THIS BOOK

TT happened In this way, towards the end of August, 1842.
■*' In the gray of the summer evening, as the sunset faded
and the twilight gathered, spreading itself tenderly over the
pastures and corn-fields, — over the purple-green glooms of the
fir forest — over the open moors, whose surface is scored for
miles by the turf-slane of the cottager and squatter — over the
clear brown streams that trickle out of the pink and emerald
mosses of the peat-bogs, and gain volume and vigour as they
sparkle away by woodside, and green-lane, and village street —
and over those secret, bosky places, in the heart of the great
common-lands, where the smooth, white stems and glossy foli-
age of the self-sown hollies spring up between the roots of the
beech trees, where plovers cry, and stoat and weazel lurk and
scamper, while the old poacher's lean, ill-favoured, rusty-
coloured lurcher picks up a shrieking hare, and where wan-
dering bands of gypsies — those lithe, onyx-eyed children of the
magic East — still pitch their dirty, little, fungus-like tents
around the camp-fire, — as the sunset died and the twilight thus
softly widened and deepened. Lady Calmady found herself, for
the first time during all the long summer day, alone.

For though no royd personage had graced the occasion with
his presence, nor had bears suft^ered martyrdom to promote
questionably amiable mirth, Brockhurst, during the past week,
had witnessed a series of festivities hardly inferior to those
which marked Sir Denzil's historic house-warming. Young
Sir Richard Calmady had brought home his bride, and it was
but fitting the whole countryside should see her. So all and
sundry received generous entertainment according to their de-
gree.— Labourers, tenants, school-children. Weary old-age
from Pennygreen poorhouse taking its pleasure of cakes andt
ale half suspiciously in the broad sunshine. The leading shop-
keepers of Westchurch and their humbler brethren from Farley^

8' SIR RICHARD CALMAi^r ,

Row. All the country gentry too. Lord and Lady Fallow*
feild and a goodly company from Whitney Park, Lord Denier
and a large contingent from Grimshott Place, the Cathcarts
of Newlands, and many more persons of undoubted conse-
quence— specially perhaps in their own eyes.

Not to mention a small army of local clergy — who ever
display a touching alacrity in attending festivals, even those
of a secular character — with camp-followers, in the form of
wives and families, galore.

And now, at last, all was over, — balls, sports, theatricals,
dinners, — the last in the case of the labourers, .with the un-
lovely adjunct of an ox roasted whole. Even the final garden-
party, designed to include such persons as it was, socially
speaking, a trifle difficult to place — Image, owner of the big
Shotover brewery, for instance, who was shouldering his way
so vigorously towards fortune and a seat on the bench of
magistrates ; the younger members of the firm of Goteway &
Fox, Solicitors of Westchurch ; Goodall, the Methodist miller
from Parson's Holt, and certain sporting yeoman farmers with
their comely womankind — even this final entertainment, with
all its small triumphs and heart-burnings, flutterings of youth-
ful inexperience, aspirations, condescensions, had gone, like
the rest of the week's junketings, to swell the sum of things
accomplished, of all that which is past and done with, and
will never come again.

Fully an hour ago, Dr. Knott, under plea of waiting cases,
bad hitched his ungainly, thick-set figure into his high gig.

*' Plenty of fine folks, eh, Timothy ? " he said to the ferret-
faced groom beside him, as he gathered up the reins ; and the
hrown mare, knowing the hand on her mouth, laid herself out
to her work. " Handsome young couple as anybody need
Wish to see. Not much business doing there for me, I fancy,
unless it lies in the nursery line."

*' Say those Brockhurst folks mostly dies airly, though," re-
marked Timothy, with praiseworthy effort at professional en-
couragement.

" Eh ! so you've heard that story too, have you ? " — and
John Knott drew the lash gently across the hollow of the
jnare's back.

" This 'ere Sir Richard's the third baronet I've a-seen, and
% bean't so very old neither,"

^^' THE CLOWN 9^^

The doctor looked dovvn at the spare little man with a cer-
tain snarling aftectlon, as he said : — " Oh no ! I'm not kept
awake o* nights by the fear of losing you, Timothy. Your
serviceable old carcass'll hang together for a good while yet." —
Then his rough eyebrows drdw into a line and he stared
thoughtfully down the long space of the clean gravel road un-
der the meetino; branches of the lime trees.

The Whitney char a bancs had driven ofF but a few mlnute^.^
later, to the admiration of all beholders ; yet not, it must be "^
admitted, without a measure of inward perturbation on the part
of that noble charioteer, Lord Fallowfeild. Her Ladyship was
constitutionally timid, and he was none too sure of the be-
haviour of his leaders in face of the string of very miscellane-
ous vehicles waiting to take up. However, the illustrious
party happily got off without any occasion for Lady Fallow-
feild's screaming. Then the ardour of departure became uni-
versal, and in broken procession the many carriages, phaetons,
gigs, traps, pony-chaises streamed away from Brockhurst
House, north, south, east and west.

Lady Calmady had bidden her guests farewell at the side-
door opening on to the terrace, before they passed through the
house to the main entrance in the south front. Last to go, as
he had been first to come, was that worthy person, Thomas
Caryll, the rector of Sandyfield. Mild, white-haired, deficient
in chin, he had a natural leaning towards women in general, and
towards those of the upper classes in particular. Katherine
Calmady's radiant youth, her courtesy, her undeniable air of
distinction, and a certain gracious gaiety which belonged to
her, had, combined with unaccustomed indulgence in claret
cup, gone far to turn the good man's head during the after-
noon. Regardless of the slightly flustered remonstrances of
his wife and daughters, he lingered, expending himself in in-
nocently confused compliment, supplemented by prophecies
regarding the blessings destined to descend upon Brockhurst
and the mother parish of Sandyfield in virtue of Lady Cal-
mady's advent.

But at length he also was gone. Katherine waited, her
eyes full of laughter, until Mr. Caryll's footsteps died away on
the stone quarries of the great hall within. Then she gently
drew the heavy door to, and stepped out on to the centre of.
the terrace. The grass slopes of the park — dotted with thorn

10 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

trees and beds of bracken, — the lime avenue running along
the ridge of the hill, the ragged edge of the fir forest to the
east, and the mass of the house, all these were softened to a
vagueness — as the landscape in a dream — by the deepening
twilight. An immense repose pervaded the whole scene. It
affected Katherine to a certain seriousness. Her social ex-
citements and responsibilities, the undoubted success that had
attended her maiden essay as hostess during the past week,
shrank to trivial proportions. Another order of emotion arose
in her. She became sensible of a necessity to take counsel
with herself.

She moved slowly along the terrace ; paused in the arcaded
garden-hall at the end of it — the carven stone benches and
tables of which showed somewhat ghostly in the dimness — to
put off her bonnet and push back the lace scarf from her
shoulders. An increasing solemnity was upon her. There
were things to think of, things deep and strange. She must
needs place them, make an effort, anyhow, to do so. And, in
face of this necessity, came an instinct to rid herself of all
small impeding conventionalities, even in the matter of dress.
For there was in Katherine that inherent desire of harmony
with her surroundings, that natural sense of fitness, which —
given certain technical aptitudes — goes to make a great dra-
matic artist. But, since in her case, such technical aptitudes
were either non-existent, or wholly in abeyance, it followed
that, save in nice questions of private honour, she was quite
the least self-conscious and self-critical of human beings.
Now, as she passed out under the archway on to the square
lawn of the troco-ground, bare-headed, in her pale dress, a
sweet seriousness filling all her mind, even as the sweet sum-
mer twilight filled all the valley and veiled the gleaming sur-
face of the Long Water far below, she felt wholly in sympathy
with the aspect and sentiment of the place. Indeed it ap-
peared to her, just then, that the four months of her marriage,
the five months of her engagement, even the twenty-two
years which made up all the sum of her earthly living, were a
prelude merely to the present hour and to that which lay im-
mediately ahead.

Yet the prelude had, in truth, been a pretty enough piece
of music. Katherine's experience had but few black patches
in it as yet. Furnished with a fair and healthy body, with

THE CLOWN II

fine breeding, with a character in which the pride and grit of
her North Country ancestry was tempered by the poetic in-
stincts and quick wit which came to her with her mother's
Irish blood, Katherine Ormiston started as well furnished as
most to play the great game that all are bound to play, whether
they will or no, with fate. Mrs. Ormiston, still young and
beloved, had died in bringing this, her only daughter, into the
world ; and her husband had looked somewhat coldly upon
the poor baby in consequence. There was an almost mis-
anthropic vein in the autocratic land-owner and iron-master.
He had three sons already, and therefore found but little use
for this woman-child. So, while pluming himself on his clear
judgment and unswerving reason, he resented, most unreason-
ably, her birth, since it took his wife from him. Such is the
irony of things, forever touching man on the raw, proving his
weakness in that he holds his strongest point ! In point of
fact, however, Katherine suffered but slightly from the poor
welcome that greeted her advent in the gray, many-towered
house upon the Yorkshire coast. For her great-aunt, Mrs.
St. Quentin, speedily gathered the small creature into her still
beautiful arms, and lavished upon it both tenderness and
wealth, along — as it grew to a companionable age — with the
wisdom of a mind ripened by wide acquaintance with men
and with public affairs. Mrs. St. Quentin — famous in Dub-
lin, London, Paris, as a beauty and a wit — had passed her
early womanhood amid the tumult of great events. She had
witnessed the horrors of the Terror, the splendid amazements
of the First Empire ; and could still count among her friends
and correspondents, politicians and literary men of no mean
standing. A legend obtains that Lord Byron sighed for her —
and in vain. For, as Katherine came to know later, this
woman had loved once, daringly, finally, yet without scandal
— though the name of him whom she loved (and who loved
her) was not, it must be owned, St. Quentin. And perhaps
it was just this, this hidden and somewhat tragic romance,
which kept her so young, so fresh ; kept her unworldly,
though moving so freely in the world ; had given hel* that ex-
quisite sense of relative values and that knowledge of the
heart, which leads, as the divine Plato has testified, to the
highest and most reconciling philosophy.

Thus, the delicately brilliant old lady and the radiant young

12 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

lady lived together delightfully enough, spending their winters
in Paris in a pretty apartment in the rue de Rennes — shared
with one Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, whose friendship with
Mrs. St. Quentin dated from their schooldays at the convent
of the Sacre Coeur. Spring and autumn found Katherine and
her great-aunt in London. While, in summer, there was al-
ways a long visit to Ormiston Castle, looking out from the
cliff edge upon the restless North Sea. Lovers came in due
course. For over and above its own shapeliness — which
surely was reason enough — Katherine's hand was well worth
winning from the worldly point of view. She would have
money ; and Mrs. St. Quentin's influence would count for
much in the case of a great-nephew-by-marriage who aspired
to a parliamentary or diplomatic career. But the lovers also-
went, for Katherine asked a great deal — not so much of them^
perhaps, as of herself. She nad taken an idea, somehow, that
marriage, to be in the least satisfactory, must be based on
love ; and that love worth the name is an essentially two-sided
business. Indirectly the girl had learnt much on this difficult
subject from her great-aunt ; and with characteristic directness
had agreed with herself to wait till her heart was touched, if
she waited a lifetime — though of exactly in what either her
heart, or the touching of it, consisted she was deliciously in-
nocent as yet.

And then, in the summer of 1841, Sir Richard Calmady
came to Ormiston. He and her brother Roger had been at
Eton together. Katherine remembered him, years ago, as a
well-bred and courteously contemptuous schoolboy, upon
whose superior mind, small female creatures — busy about
dolls, and victims of the athletic restrictions imposed by petti-
coats— made but slight impression. Latterly Sir Richard'^s
name had come to be one to conjure with in racing circles^
thanks to the performances of certain horses bred and trained
at the Brockhurst stables ; though some critics, it is true, de-
plored his tendency to neglect the older and more legitimate
sport of flat-racing in favour of steeple-chasing. It was saitl
he aspired to rival the long list of victories achieved by Mr.
Elmore's Gaylad and Lottery, and the successes of Peter
Simple the famous gray. This much Katherine had heard
of him from her brother. And having her haughty turns — as
what charming woman has not ? — set him down as probably a

THE CLOWN 13

rough sort of person, notwithstanding his weahh and good
connections, a kind of gentleman jockey, upon whom it would
be easy to take a measure of pretty revenge for his boyish in-
difference to her existence. But the meeting, and the young
man, alike, turned out quite other than she had anticipated.
For s^e found a person as well furnished in all polite and
social arts as herself, with no flavour of the stable about him.
She had reckoned on one whose scholarship would carry him
no further than a few stock quotations from Horace, and
whose knowledge of art would begin and end with a portrait
of himself presented by the members of a local hunt. And it
was a little surprising — possibly a little mortifying to her — to
hear him talking over obscure passages in Spencer's Fcsr'ie
^eene with Mrs. St. Quentin, before the end of the dinner, and
nicely apprising the relative merits of the water-colour sketches
by Turner, that hung on either side the drawing-room fireplace.
Nor did Katherine's surprises end here. An unaccount-
able something was taking place within her, that opened up a
whole new range of emotion. She, the least moody of young
women, had strange fluctuations of temper, finding herself
buoyantly happy one hour, the next pensive, filled with
timidity and self-distrust — not to mention the little fits of
gusty anger, and purposeless jealousy which took her, hurting
her pride shrewdly. She grew anxiously solicitous as to her
personal appearance. This dress would not please her nor
that. The image of her charming oval face and well-set head
ceased to satisfy her. Surely a woman's hair should be either
positively blond or black, not this indeterminate brown, with
warm lights in it ? She feared her mouth was not small
enough, the lips too full and curved for prettiness. She
wished her eyes less given to change, under their dark lashes,
from clear gray-blue to a nameless colour like the gloom of
the pools of a woodland stream, as her feelings changed from
gladness to distress. She feared her complexion was too
bright, and then not bright enough. And, all the while, a
certain shame possessed her that she should care at all about
such trivial matters ; for life had grown suddenly larger and
more august. Books she had read, faces she had watched a
hundred times, the vast horizon looking eastward over the un-
quiet sea, all these gained a new value and meaning which at
once enthralled and agitated her thought.

i^, SIR RICHARD CALMADY

i Sir Richard Calmady stayed a fortnight at Ormiston. And
the two ladies crossed to Paris earlier, that autumn, than was
their custom. Katherine was not in her usual good healthy
and Mrs. St. Quentin desired change of air and scene on her
account. She took Mademoiselle de Mirancourt into her
confidence, hinting at causes for her restlessness and way-
ward little humours unacknowledged by the girl herself.
Then the two elder women wrapped Katherine about with an
atmosphere of — if possible — deeper tenderness than before ;
mingling sentiment with their gaiety, and gaiety with their
sentiment, and the delicate respect which refrains from ques-
tion with both.

One keenly bright October afternoon Richard Calmady
called in the rue de Rennes. It appeared he had come to
Paris with the intention of remaining there for an indefinite
period. He called again and yet again, making himself
charming — a touch of deference tempering his natural suavitv
— alike to his hostesses and to such of their guests as he hap-
pened to meet. It was the fashion of fifty years ago to con-
duct affairs, even those of the heart, with a dignified absence
of precipitation. The weeks passed, while Sir Richard be-
came increasingly welcome in some of the very best houses in
Paris. — And Katherine ? It must be owned Katherine was
not without some heartaches, which she proudly tried to deny
to herself and conceal from others. But eventually — it was
on the morning after the ball at the British Embassy — the
man spoke and the maid answered, and the old order changed,
giving place to new in the daily life of the pretty apartment
of the rue de Rennes.

About five months later the marriage took place in London ;
and Sir Richard and Lady Calmady started forth on a wedding
journey of the old-fashioned type. They traveled up the Rhine,
and posted, all in the delicious, early summer weather, through
Northern Italy, as far as Florence. They returned by Paris,
And there, Mrs. St. Quentin watching — in almost painful anx-
.'ety — to see how it fared with her recovered darling, was
wholly satisfied, and gave thanks. For she perceived that, in
this case, at least, marriage was no legal, conventional con-
nection leaving the heart emptier than it found it — the barter-
ing of precious freedom for a joyless bondage, an obligation,
weary in the present^ and hopeless of alleviation in the future.

THE CLOWN 15

save by the reaching of that far-distant, heavenly country,
concerning which it is comfortably assured us " that there they
neither marry nor are given in marriage." For the Katherine
who came back to her was at once the same, and yet another,
Katherine — one who carried her head more proudly and
stepped as though she was mistress of the whole fair earth, but
whose merry wit had lost its little edge of sarcasm, whose
sympathy was quicker and more instinctive, whose voice had
taken fuller and more caressing tones, and in whose sweet eyes
sat a steady content good to see. And then, suddenly, Mrs.
St. Quentin began to feel her age as she had never^ con-
sciously, felt it before ; and to be very willing to fold her
hands and recite her Nunc Dimittis. For, in looking on the
faces of the bride and bridegroom, she had looked once again
on the face of Love itself, and had stood within the court of the
temple of that Uranian Venus whose unsullied glory is secure
here and hereafter, since to her it is given to discover to hef
worshippers the innermost secret of existence, thereby fencing
them forever against the plagues of change, delusion, and
decay. Love began gently to loosen the cords of life, and to
draw Lucia St. Quentin home — home to that dear dwelling-
place which, as we fondly trust — since God Himself is Love
— is reserved for all true lovers beyond the grave and Gates
of Death. Thus one flower falls as another opens ; and to-
day, however sweet, is only won across the corpse of
yesterday.

And it was some perception of just this — the ceaseless push
of event following on event, the ceaseless push of the yet un-
born struggling to force the doors of life — which moved Kath-
erine to seriousness, as she stood alone on the smooth expanse
of the troco-ground, in the soft, all-covering twilight, at the
close of the day's hospitality.

On her right the house, and its delicate twisted chimneys,
showed dark against the fading rose of the western sky. The
air, rich with the fragrance of the red-walled gardens behind
her, — with the scent of jasmine, heliotrope and clove carna-
tions, ladies-lilies and mignonette, — was stirred, now and
again, by wandering winds, cool from the spaces of the open
moors. While, as the last roll of departing wheels died out
along the avenues, the voices of the woodland began to reas-
sert themselves. Wild-fowl called from the alder-fringed

i6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Long Water. Night-hawks churred as they beat on noiseless
wings above the beds of bramble and bracken. A cock
pheasant made a most admired stir and keckling in seeing his-
wife and brood to roost on the branches of one of King;
James's age-old Scotch firs.

And this sense of nature coming back to claim her own, to
make known her eternal supremacy, now that the fret of
man's little pleasuring had past, was very grateful to Katherine
Calmady. Her soul cried out to be free, for a time, to con-
template, to fully apprehend and measure its own happiness.
It needed to stand aside, so that the love given, and all given
with that love — even these matters of house and gardens, of
men-servants and maid-servants, of broad acres, all the poetry,
in short, of great possessions — might be seen in perspective.
For Katherine had that necessity — in part intellectual, in part
practical, and common to all who possess a gift for rule — to
resist the confusing importunity of detail, and to grasp intelli-
gently the whole, which alone gives to detail coherence and
purpose. Her mind was not one — perhaps unhappily — which
is contented to merely play with bricks, but demands the plan
of the building into which those bricks should grow. And she
wanted, just now, to lay hold of the plan of the fair building
of her own life. And to this end the solitude, the evening
quiet, the restful unrest of the forest and its wild creatures
should surely have ministered ? She moved forward and sat
on the broad stone balustrade which, topping the buttressed
masonry that supports it above the long downward grass slope
of the park, encloses the troco-ground on the south.

The landscape lay drowned in the mystery of the summer
night. And Katherine, looking out into it, tried to think
clearly, tried to range the many new experiences of the last
months and to reckon with them. But her brain refused ta
work obediently to her will. She felt strangely hurried for all
the surrounding quiet.

One train of thought, which she had been busy enough by
day and honestly sleepy enough at night, to keep at arm's
length during this time of home-coming and entertaining, now
invaded and possessed her mind — filling it at once with a new
and overwhelming movement of tenderness, yet for all her
high courage with a certain fear. She cried out for a little
space of waiting, a little space in which to take breath. She-

THE CLOWN 17

wanted to pause, here in the fulness of her Content. But no
pause was granted her. She was so happy, she asked nothing
more. But something more was forced wpon her. And so it
happened that, in realising the ceaseless push of event on
event, the ceaseless dying of dear to-day in the service of un-
born to-morrow, her gentle seriousness touched on regret.

How long she remained lost in such pensive reflections
Lady Calmady could not have said. Suddenly the terrace
door slammed. A moment later a man's footsteps echoed
across the flags of the garden-hall.

" Katherine," Richard Calmady called, somewhat impera-
tively, " Katherine, are you there ? '*

She turned and stood watching him as he came rapidly across
the turf.

" Yes, I am here," she cried. " Do you want me ? "

" Do I want you ? " he answered curtly. "Don't I always
want you ? "

A little sob rose in her throat — she knew not why — for,*
hearing the tone of his voice, her sadness was strangely
assuaged.

" I could not find you," he went on. " And I got into an
absurd state of panic — sent Roger in one direction, and Julius
in another, to look for you."

'^ Whereupon Roger, probably, posted down to the stables,
and Julius up to the chapel to search. Where the heart
dwells there the feet follow. Meanwhile, you came straight
here and found me yourself."

^' I might have known I should do that."

The importunate thought returned upon Katherine and
with it a touch of her late melancholy.

" Ah ! one knows nothing for certain when one is fright-
ened," she said. She moved closer to him, holding out her
hand. " Here," she continued, "you are a little too shadowy,
too unsubstantial, in this light, Dick. I would rather make
more sure of your presence."

Richard Calmady laughed very gently. Then the two stood
silent, looking out over the dim valley, hand in hand. The
scent of the gardens was about them. Moving lights showed
through the many windows of the great house. The water-
fowl called sleepily. The churring of the night-hawks was
continuous, soothing as the hum of a spinning-wheel. Some-

i8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

where, away in the Warren, a fox barked. In the eastern
sky, the young moon began to climb above the ragged edge of
the firs. When they spoke again it was very simply, in
broken sentences, as children speak. The poetry of their re-
lation to one another and the scene about them were too full
of meaning, too lovely, to call for polish of rhetoric, or point-
ing by epigram.

" Tell me," Katherine said, " were you satisfied ? Did I
entertain your people prettily ? "

" Prettily ? You entertained them as they had never been
entertained before — like a queen — and they knew it. But
why did you stay out here alone ? "

" To think — and to look at Brockhurst."

" Yes, it's worth looking at now," he said. " It was like a
body wanting a soul till you came." /

" But you loved it ? " Katherine reasoned.

" Oh yes ! because I believed the soul would come some
day. Brockhurst, and the horses, and the books, all helped to
make the time pass while I was waiting."

"Waiting for what ? "

" Why for you, of course, you dear, silly sweet. Haven't
I always been waiting for you — just precisely and wholly you,,
nothing more or less — all through my life, all through all con-
ceivable and inconceivable lives, since before the world
began ? "

Katherine's breath came with a fluttering sigh. She let
her head fall back against his shoulder. Her eyes closed in-
voluntarily. She loved these fond exaggerations — as what
woman does not who has had the good fortune to hear them ?
They pierced her with a delicious pain ; and — perhaps there-
fore, perhaps not unwisely — she believed them true.

" Are you tired ? " he asked presently.

Katherine looked up smiling, and shook her head.

^' Not too tired to be up early to-morrow morning and come
out with me to see the horses galloped ? Sultan will give you
no trouble. He is well-seasoned and merely looks on at things
in general with intelligent interest, goes like a lamb and stands
like a rock."

While her husband was speaking Katherine straightened
herself up, and moved a little from him though still holding his
hand^^ Her languor passed, and her eyes grew large and black*

THE CLOWN iq

" I think, perhaps, I had better not go to-morrow, Dick,"
"she said slowly.

" Ah ! you are tired, you poor dear. No wonder, after the
week's work you have had. Another day will do just as well.
Only I want you to come out sometimes in the first blush of
the morning, before the day has had time to grow common-
place, while the gossamers are still hung with dew, and the
mists are in hollows, and the horses are heady from the fresh
air and the light. You will like it all, Kitty. It is rather
inspiring. But it will keep. To-morrow I'll let you rest in
peace."

" Oh no ! it is not that," Katherine said quickly. The
importunate thought was upon her again, clamouring, not
only to be recognised, but fairly owned to and permitted to
pass the doors of speech. And a certain modesty made her
shrink from this. To know something in the secret of your
own heart, or to tell it, thereby making it a hard concrete fact,
outside yourself, over which, in a sense, you cease to have
control, are two such very different matters ! Katherine
trembled on the edge of her confession, though that to be
confessed was, after all, but the natural crown of her love.

" I think I ought not to ride now — for a time, Dick." All
the blood rushed into her face and throat, and then ebbed,
leaving her very white in the growing darkness. — " You have
given me a child," she said.

CHAPTER III

TOUCHING MATTERS CLERICAL AND CONTROVERSIAL

T)ROCKHURST had rarely appeared more blessed by
spacious sunshine and stately cheerfulness than during
the remaining weeks of that summer. A spirit of unclouded
serenity possessed the place, both indoors and out. If rain
fell, it was only at night. And this, as so much else, Julius
March noted duly in his diary.

For that was the period of elaborate private chronicles,
when persons of intelligence and position still took them-
selves, their doings and their emotions with most admired

20 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

seriousness. Natural science, the great leveler, had hardly
stepped in as yet. Therefore it was, that already, Julius's
diary ran into many stout manuscript volumes ; each in turn
soberly but richly bound, with silver clasp and lock complete,
so'soi^n as its final page was written. Begun when he first
went ' up to Oxford, some thirteen years earlier, it formed an
intirnate history of the influences of the Tractariap Movement
upon ^scholarly mind and delicately spiritual nature. At the
commencement of his Oxford career he had come into close
relations with some of the leaders of the movement. And the
conception of an historic church, endowed with mystic
powers — conveyed through an unbroken line of priests from
the age of the apostles — the orderly round of vigil, fast, and
festival, the secret, introspective joys of penance and confes-
sion, the fascinations of the strictly religious life, as set be-
fore him in eloquent public discourse or persuasive private
conversation, — had combined to kindle an imagination very
insufficiently satisfied by the lean spiritual meats offered it
during an Evangelical childhood and youth. Julius yielded
himself up to his instructors with passionate self-abandon.
He took orders, and remained on at Oxford — being a fellow
of his college — working earnestly for the cause he had so at
heart. Eventually he became a member of the select band of
disciples that dwelt, uncomfortably, supported by visions of
reactionary reform at once austere and beneficent, in the range
of disused stable buildings at Littlemore.

Of the storm and stress of this religious war, its triumphs,
its defeats, its many agitations, Julius's diaries told with a deep,
if chastened, enthusiasm. His was a singularly pure nature,
unmoved by the primitive desires which usually inflame young
blood. Ideas heated him ; while the lust of the eye and the
pride of life left him almost scornfully cold. He strove
earnestly, of course, to bring the flesh into subjection to the
spirit y which was, calmly considered, a slight waste of time,
:^ince the said flesh showed the least possible inclination of re-
Volt. The earlier diaries contain pathetic exaggerations of the
slightest indiscretion. Innocent and virtuous persons have
ever been prone to such little manias of self-accusation !
Later, the flesh did assert itself, though in a hardly licentious
manner. Oxford fogs and damp, along with plain living and
high thinking, acting upon a constitution naturally far fro^

^^*' THE CLOWN 21

robust, produced a commonplace but most disabling nemesis
in the form of colds, coughs, and chronic asthma. Julius did
not greatly care. He was in that exalted frame of mind in
which martyrdom, even by phthisis or bronchial affections, is
immeasurably preferable to no martyrdom at all. Perhaps
fortunately his relations, and even his Oxford friends, took a
quite other view of the matter, and insisted upon his using all
legitimate means to prolong his life.

Julius left Oxford with intense regret. It was the Holy
City of the Tractarian Movement ; and at this moment the
progress of that Movement was the one thing worth living
for, if live indeed he must. He went forth bewailing his
exile and enforced idleness, as a man bewails the loss of the
love of his youth. For a time he traveled in Italy and in the
south of France. On his return to England he went to stay
with his friend and cousin. Sir Richard Calmady. Brockhurst
House had always been extremely congenial to him. Its suites
of handsome rooms, the inlaid marble chimneypieces of which
reach up to the frieze of the heavily moulded ceilings, its wide
passages and stairways, their carved balusters and newel-posts,
the treasures of its library — now overflowing the capacity of
the two rooms originally designed for them, and filling ranges
of bookcases between the bay windows of the Long Gallery
running the whole length of the first floor from east to west,
— the chapel in the southern wing, its richly furnished altar
and the glories of its famous, stained-glass windows, all these
were very grateful to his taste. While the light, dry, upland
air and near neighbourhood of the fir forest eased the physical
discomforts from which, at times, he still suffered shrewdly.

He found the atmosphere of the place both soothing and
steadying. And of precisely this he stood sorely in need just,
now. For it must be admitted that a change had come overt;
the spirit of Julius March's great ecclesiastical dream. Ab-
sence from Oxford and foreign travel had tended at once to
widen and modify his thought. He had seen the Tractarian
Movement from a distance, in due perspective. He had also
seen Catholicism at close quarters. He had realised that the
logical consequence of the teaching of the former could be
nothing less than unqualified submission to the latter. On his
return to England he learned that more than one of his Ox-
ford friends was arriving, reluctantly, at the same conclusion..,

23 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Then there arose within him the fiercest struggle his gentle
nature had ever yet known. He v/as torn by the desire to ga
forward, risking all, with those whom he reverenced j yet was
restrained by a sense of honour. For there was in Julius a
strain of obstinate, almost fanatic, loyalty. To the Anglican
Church he had pledged himself. Through her ministry he
hiad received illumination. To the work of her awakening
he had given all his young enthusiasm. How then could he
desert her ? Her rites might be maimed. The scandal of
schism might tarnish her fair fame. Accusations of sloth and
lukewarmness might not unjustly be preferred against her. AH
this he admitted ; and it was very characteristic of the man
that, just because he did admit it, he remained within her
fold.

Yet the decision was dislocating to all his thought, even as
the struggle had been. It left him bruised. It cruelly shook
his self-confidence. For he was not one of those persons^
upon whom the shipwreck of long-cherished hopes and pur-
poses have a stimulating effect, filling them merely with a
buoyant satisfaction at the opportunity afforded them of be-
ginning all over again ! Julius was oppressed by the sense of
a great failure. The diaries of this period are but sorrowful
reading. He believed he should go softly all his days ; and^
from a certain point of view, in this he was right.

And it was here that Sir Richard Calmady intervened. He
had watched his cousin's struggle, had accepted its reality,
sympathising, through friendship rather than through moral or
intellectual agreement. For he was one of those fortunate
mortals who, while possessing a strong sense of God, have but
small necessity to define Him. Many of Julius's keenest
agonies appeared to him subjective, a matter of words and
phrases. Yet he respected them, out of the sincere regard he
bore the man who suffered them. He did more. He tried a
practical remedy. Modestly, as one asking rather than con-
ferring a favour, he invited Julius to remain at Brockhurst, on
a fair stipend, as domestic chaplain and librarian.

*' In the fulness of your generosity towards me you are
creating a costly sinecure," Julius had remonstrated.

" Not in the least. I am selfishly trying to secure myself a
most welcome companion, by asking you to undertake a very
modest cure of souls and to catalogue my books, when you

'^"' THE CLOWN 23

might be filling some important post and qualifying for a
bishopric.*'

Julius had shaken his head sadly enough. " The high places
of the Church are not for me," he said. " Neither are her
great adventures."

Thus did Julius March, somewhat broken both in health
and spirit, become a carpet-priest. The trumpet blasts of con-
troversy reached him as echoes merely, while his days passed
in peaceful, if pensive monotony. He read prayers morning
and evening to the assembled household in the chapel ; reduced
the confusion of the library shelves, doing a fair amount of
study, both secular and theological, during the process ; rode
with his cousin on fine afternoons to distant farms, by high-
banked lanes in the lowland, or across the open moors ; visited
the lodges, or the keepers' and gardeners' cottages within the
limits of the park, on foot. Now and again he took a service,
or preached a sermon, for good Mr. Caryll of Sandyfield, in
whose amiable mind instinctive admiration of those, even
distantly, related to persons of wealth and position jostled an
equally instinctive terror of Mr. March's " well-known Ro-
manising tendencies." And in that there was, surely, a touch
of the irony of fate! Lastly, Julius did his utmost to exer-
cise an influence for good over the twenty and odd boys at the
racing stables — an unpromising generation at best, the majority
of whom, he feared, accepted his efforts for their moral and
spiritual welfare with the same somewhat brutish philosophy
with which they accepted Tom Chifney, the trainer's, rough-
and-ready system of discipline, and the thousand and one
vagaries of the fine-limbed, queer-tempered horses which were
at once the glory and torment of their young lives.

Things had gone on thus for rather more than a year, when
Richard Calmady married. Julius was perhaps inclined, be-
forehand, to underrate the importance of that event. He was
singularly innocent, so far, of the whole question of woman.
He had no sisters. At Oxford he had lived exclusively among
men, while the Tractarian Movement had offered a sufficient
outlet to all his emotion. The severe and exquisite verses of
the " Lyra Apostolica " fitly expressed the passions of his
heart. To the Church, at once his mother and his mistress,
he had wholly given his first love. He had gone so far, in-
deed, in a rapture of devotion one Easter day, during the cele-

2A SIR RICHARD CALMADY

bration of the Holy Eucharist, as to impose upon himself a
vow of livelong chastity. This he did — let it be added —
without either the sanction orlcnowledge of his spiritual ad-
visers. The vow, therefore, remained unwitnessed and un-
ratified, but he held it inviolable nevertheless. And it lay but
lightly upon him, joyfully almost — rather as a ridding of him-
self of possible perturbations and obsessions, than as an act of
most austere self-renunciation. In his ignorance he merely
went forward with an increased freedom of spirit. All of
which is set down, not without underlying pathos, in the diary
of that date.

And that freedom of spirit remained by him, notwithstand-
ing his altered circumstances. It even served — indirectly,
since none knew the fact of his self-dedication save himself—-
as a basis of pleasant intercourse with the women of his own
social standing whom he now met. It served him thus in
respect of Lady Calmady, who accepted him as a member of
her new household with charming kindliness, treating him
with a gentle solicitude born of pity for his far from robust
health and for the mental struggles which she understood him
to have passed through.

Many persons, it must be owned, described Julius as re-
markably ugly. But he did not strike Katherine thus. His
heavy black hair, beardless face and sallow skin — rendered dull
and colourless, his features thickened, thougii not actually
scarred, by smallpox, which he had had as a child, — his sensi-
tive mouth, and the questioning expression of his short-sighted
brown eyes, reminded her of a fifteenth-century Florentine
portrait that had always challenged her attention when she
passed it in the vestibule of a certain obscure, yet aristocratic,
Parisian hotel, on the left bank — well understood — of the
Seine.

The man of the portrait was narrow-chested, clothed in
black. So was Julius March. He had long-fingered, finely
shaped hands. So had Julius. He gave her the impression
of a person endowed with a capacity of prolonged and silent
self-sacrifice. So did Julius. She wondered about his story.
For Julius, at least — little as she or he then suspected it — the
deepest places of the story still lay ahead.

THE CLOWN 25

CHAPTER IV

RAISING PROBLEMS WHICH IT IS THE PURPOSE OF THIS HIS-
TORY TO RESOLVE

TT was not without a movement of inward thanksgiving
-*" that, the festivities connected with Sir Richard and Lady
Cahnady's home-coming being over, Julius March returned to
his labours in the Brockhurst library. Humanity at first hand,
whatever its social standing or its pursuits, was, in truth, al-
ways slightly agitating to him. He felt more at home when
dealing with conclusions than with the data that go to build up
those conclusions, with the thoughts of men printed and
bound, than with the urgent raw material from which those
thoughts arise. Revelation, authority — these were still his
watchwords ; and in face of them even the harmless spectacle
of a country neighbourhood at play, let alone the spectacle of
the human comedy generally, is singularly confusing.

He sought the soothing companionship of books with even
heightened relief one fair morning some three weeks later.
For Mrs. St. Quentin and Mademoiselle de Mirancourt had
arrived at Brockhurst the day previously, and Julius had been
sensible of certain perturbations of mind in meeting these two
ladies, one of whom was a devout Catholic by inheritance and
personal conviction ; while the other, though nominally a
member of his own communion, was known to temper her
religion with a wide, if. refined, philosophy. Conversation
had drifted towards serious subjects in the course of the even-^
ing, and Mrs. St. Quentin had admitted, with a playful dep-
recation of her dear friend's rigid religious attitude, that no
one creed, no one system, offered an adequate solution of the
infinite mystery and complexity of life — as she knew it. The
serene adherence of one charming and experienced woman to
an authority which he had rejected, the almost equally serene
indifference on the part of the other to the revelation he held
as absolute and final, troubled Julius. Small wonder then,
that early, after a solitary breakfast, he retired upon the society

26 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

of the odd volumes cluttering the shelves of the Long Gal-
lery, that he sorted, arranged, catalogued, grateful for that dull-
ing of thought which mechanical labour brings with it.

But fate was malicious, and elected to make a sport of
Julius this morning. Unexpectedly importunate human drama
obtruded itself, the deep places of the story — such as, in the
innocence of his ascetic refinement, he had never dreamed of
— began to reveal themselves.

He had climbed the wide, carpeted steps of the liWary lad-
der and seated himself on the topmost one, at right angles to
a topmost shelf the contents of which he proposed to investi-
gate, duster and note-book in hand. The vast perspective of
the gallery lengthened out before him, cool, faint-tinted, full
of a diffused and silvery light. The self-coloured, unpainted
paneling of the walls and bookcases — but one shade warmer
in tone than that of the stone mullions and transomes of the
lofty windows — gave an indescribable delicacy of effect to the
atmosphere of the room. Through the many-paned, leaded
lights of the eastern bay, the sunshine — misty, full of dancing
notes — streamed in obliquely, bringing into quaint prominence
of light and shadow a very miscellaneous collection of objects.
— A marble Buddha, benign of aspect, his right hand raised in
blessing, seated, cross-legged upon the many-petalled lotus.
A pair of cavalier's jack-boots, standing just below, most
truculent and ungainly of foot-gear, wooden, hinged, leather-
covered. A trophy of Polynesian spears, shields, and canoe
paddles. A bronze Antinous, seductive of bearing and dainty
of limb, but roughened by green rust. A collection of old
sporting prints, softly coloured, covering a bare space of wall,
beneath a moose skull, from the broad flat antlers of which
hung a pair of Canadian snow-shoes. Along the inside wall
of the great room, placed at regular intervals, were consol
tables bearing tall oriental jars and huge bowls of fine porce-
lain, filled with potpourri; so that the scent of dried rose
leaves, bay, verbena, and many spices impregnated the air.
The place was, in short, a museum. Whatever of strange,
grotesque, and curious, Calmadys of past generations had col-
lected in their wanderings, by land and sea, found lodgment
here. It was a home of half- forgotten histories, of valorous
deeds grown dim through the lapse of years ; a harbour of
refuge for derelict gods, derelict weapons, derelict volumes,

THE CLOWN 27

derelict instruments which had once discoursed sweet enough
music, but the fashion of which had now passed away. The
somewhat obsolete sentiment of the place harmonised with the
thin, silvery light and the thin sweetness of spices and dead
roses which pervaded it. It seemed to smile, as with the pity-
ing tolerance of the benign image of Buddha, at the heat and
flame, the untempered scarlet and purple of the fleeting pro-
cession of individual lives, that had ministered to its furnish-^
ing. For how much vigorous endeavour, now over and done
with, never to be recalled, had indeed gone to supply the
furnishing of that room ! — And, after all, is not the most any
human creature dare hope for the more or less dusty corner of
some museum shelf at last ? The passion of the heart testi-
fied to by some battered trinket, the sweat of the brain by
some maggot-eaten manuscript, the agony of death, at best, by
some round shot turned up by the ploughshare .f^ And how
shall any one dare complain of this, since have not empires^
before now only been saved from oblivion by a few buried
potsherds, and whole races of mankind by childish picture-
scratchings on a reindeer bone ? Tout lasse^ tout passe^ tout
casse. The individual — his arts, his possessions, his religion,
his civilisation — is always as an envelope, merely, to be torn
asunder and cast away. Nothing subsists, nothing endures
but life itself, endlessly self-renewed, endlessly one, through
the endless divergencies of its manifestations. And, as Julius
March was to find, hide from it, deny it, strive to elude it as
we may, the recognition of just that is bound to grip us sooner
or later and hold us with a fearful and dominating power from
which there is no escape.

Meanwhile, his occupation was tranquil enough, comforta-
bly remote, as it seemed, from all such profound and disquiet-
ing matters. For the top shelf proved not very prolific of
interest; and one book after another, examined and rejected as
worthless, was dropped — with a reproachful flutter of pages
and final thud — into the capacious paper-basket standing on
the floor below. Then, at the far end of the said shelf, he
came unexpectedly upon a collection of those quaint chap-
books which commanded so wide a circulation during the
eighteenth century.

Julius, with the true bibliophile's interest in all originals,,
examined his find carefully. The tattered and dogs-eared.

28 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

little volumes, coarsely printed and embellished by a number
of rough, square woodcuts, had, he knew, a distinct value.
He soon perceived that they formed a very representative se-
lection. He glanced at The famous History of Guy of War-
-wick ; at that of Sir Bevis of Southampton ; at yoaks upon
Joaks^ a lively work regarding the manners and customs of the
aristocracy at the period of the Restoration ; at the record of
the amazing adventures of that lusty serving-wench Long Meg
of Westminster ,* and at that refreshing piece of comedy known
as Merry Tales concerning the Sayings and Doings of the Wise
Men of Gotham.

Finally, hidden behind the outstanding frame of the book-
case, he discovered four tiny volumes tied together with a
rusty, black ribbon. A heavy coating of dust lay upon them.
A large spider, moreover, darted from behind them. Dust
clung unpleasantly to its hairy and ill-favoured person.
It was a matter of principle with Julius never to take life;
yet instinctively he drew back his hand from the book in dis-
gust.

^^Jraignee du matin^ chagrin^"" he said, involuntarily, while
he watched the insect make good its escape over the top of the
bookcase.

Then he flicked uneasily at the little parcel with his duster,
causing a cloud of gray atoms to float up and out into the
room. Julius was perhaps absurdly open to impressions. It
took him some seconds to recover from his sense of repulsion
and to untie the rusty ribbon around the little books. They
proved all to be ragged and imperfect copies of the same work.
The woodcuts in them were splotched with crude colour.
The title-page was printed in assorted type — here a line of
Roman capitals, there one in italics or old English letters.
The inscription, consequently, was diflicult to decipher, causing
him to hold the tattered page very close to his short-sighted
eyes. It ran thus —

*' Setting forth a true and particular account of the dealings
■of Sir Thomas Calmady with the forester's daughter and the
bloudy death of her only child. To which is added her
prophecy and curse."

Julius had been standing, so as to reach the length of the

THE CLOWN 29

shelf. Now he sat down on the top step of the ladder again.
A whole rush of memories came upon him. He remembered
vaguely how, long ago, in his childhood, he had heard legends
of this same curse. Staying here at Brockhurst, as a baby-
child with his mother, maids had hinted at it, gossiping over
the nursery fire at night; and his mind, irresistibly attracted,
even then, by the supernatural, had been filled at once by des-
perate curiosity and by panic fear. He paused, thinking back,
singularly moved, as one on the edge of the satisfaction of
long-desired knowledge, yet slightly self-contemptuous, both
of his own emotion and of the rather vulgar means by which
that knowledge promised to be obtained.

The shafts of sunshine fell more obliquely across the eastern
end of the gallery. Benign Buddha had passed into shadow ;.
while a painting by Murillo, standing on an easel near by
caught the light, starting into arresting reality. It represented
a hideous and misshapen dwarf, holding a couple of graceful
greyhounds in a leash — an unhappy creature who had made
sport for the household of some Castilian grandee, and whose
gorgeous garments were ingeniously designed to emphasise
the physical degradation of his contorted body. This paint-
ing, appearing to Julius too painful for habitual contemplation^
had, at his request, been removed from his study down-stairs to
its present station. Just now he fancied it looked forth at him
queerly insistent. At this distance he could distinguish little
more than a flare of scarlet and cloth-of-gold, and the white
of the hounds' flanks and bellies under the strong sunlight.
But he knew the picture in all its details ; and was oppressed
by the remembrance of tragic eyes in a brutal face, eyes that
protested dumbly against cruelty inflicted by nature and by
mankind alike. He, Julius, was not, so he feared, quite
guiltless in this matter. For had there not been a savour of
cruelty in his ejection of the portrait of this unhappy being
from his peaceful study ?

And thinking of this his discomfort augmented. He was^
assailed by an unreasoning nervousness of something malign,
something sinister, about to befall or to become known to
him.

^^Jraignee du mat'tn^ chagrin^^ he repeated involuntarily.

He laid the four little chap-books back hastily behind the
outstanding woodwork of the bookshelf, descended the steps,.

30 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

walked the kngth of the gallery, and leaning against one of the
stone mullions of the great, eastern bay window looked out
of the wide, open casement.

The prospect was, indeed, reassuring enough. The softly
green square of the troco-ground, the brilliant beds and borders
of the brick-walled gardens, the gray flags of the great terrace
— its rows of little orange trees, heavy with flower and fruit,
set in blue painted tubs — lay below him in a blaze of August
sunshine. From the direction of the Long Water in the valley,
Richard Calmady rode up, between the thorn trees and the
beds of bracken, across the turf slopes of the park. It was a
joy to see him ride. The rider and horse were one, in
vigour and in the repose which comes of vigour — a something
classic in the natural beauty and sympathy of rider and of
horse. Half-way up the slope Richard swerved, turned towards
the house, sat looking up, hat in hand, while Katherine stood
at the edge of the terrace looking down, speaking with him.
The warm breeze fluttered her full muslin skirts, rose and
white, and the white lace of her parasol. The rich tones of
her voice and the ring of her laughter came up to Julius, as he
leant against the stone mullion, along with the droning of in-
numerable bees, and the cooing of the pink-footed pigeons —
that bowed to one another, spreading their tails, drooping their
wings amorously, upon the broad, gray string-course running
along the house front just beneath. Mademoiselle de Miran-
court, a small, neat, gray and black figure, was beside Kather-
ine, and, now and again, he heard the pretty staccato of her
foreign speech. Then Richard Calmady rode onward, turn-
ing half round in the saddle, looking up for a moment at the
woman he loved. His horse broke into a canter, bearing him
swiftly in and out of the shadow of the glistening, domed
oaks and ancient, stag-headed, Spanish chestnuts which crowned
the ascent, and on down the long, softly-shaded vista of the
lime avenue. While Camp, the bulldog, who had lain pant-
ing in the bracken, streaked like a white flash up the hillside
in pursuit of his well-beloved master.

And Julius March moved away from the open window with
a sigh. Yet what, after all, of malign or sinister was percepti-
ble, conceivable even, in respect of this glorious morning and
these happy people — unless, as he reflected, something of
jpathos is of necessity ever resident in all beauty, all happiness,

THE CLOWN 3?

the world being sinful, and existence so prolific of pain and
melancholy happenings ? So he went back, climbed the library
steps again, and taking the little bundle of chap-books from
their dusty resting-place, set himself, in a somewhat peniten-
tial spirit, to master their contents. If the occupation was
distasteful to him, the more wholesome to pursue it ! So, sup-
plying the deficiencies of torn or defaced pages by reference to
another of the copies, he arrived by degrees at a clear under-
standing of the whole matter. The story was set forth in
rhyming doggerel. The poet was not blessed with a gift of
melody or of style. Absence of scansion tortured the ear.
Coarseness of diction offended the taste. And yet, as he read
on, Julius reluctantly admitted that the cruel tale gained cred-
ibility and moral force from the very homeliness of the lan-
guage in which it was chronicled.

Thus Julius learned how, during the closing years of the
Commonwealth, the young royalist gentleman. Sir Thomas^
Calmady, dwelling in enforced seclusion at Brockhurst, re-
lieved the tedium of country life by indulgence in divers
amours. He was large-hearted, apparently, and could not see
a comely face without attempting intimate acquaintance with
the possessor of it. Among other damsels distinguished by
his attentions was his head forester's handsome daughter^
whom, under reiterated promise of marriage, he seduced. In
due time she bore him a child, ideally beautiful, according to
the poet of the chap-book, blessed with "red-gold hair and
eyes of blue," and many charms of infantile healthfulness.
And yet, notwithstanding the noble looks of her little son, the
forester's daughter still remained unwed. For just now came
the Restoration, and along with it a notable change in the out-
look of Sir Thomas Calmady and many another lusty young
gallant, since the event in question not only restored Charles
the Second to the arms of his devoted subjects, but restored
such loyal gentlemen to the by no means too strait-laced so-
ciety of town and court. Thence, some few years later. Sir
Thomas — amiably willing in all things to oblige his royal
master — brought home a bride, whose rank and wealth, ac-
cording to the censorious chap-book, were extensively in excess
of her youth and virtue.

Julius lingered a little in contemplation of the quaint wood-
cut representing the arrival of this lady at Brockhurst. Clothed

32 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

in a bottle-green bodice — very generously decolleteey her head
adorned by a portentous erection of coronet and feathers, a
sanguine dab of colour on her cheek, she craned a skinny neck
out of the window of the family coach. Apparently she was
engaged in directing the movements of persons — presumably
footmen — clad in canary-coloured coats and armed with long
staves. With these last, they treated a female figure in blue
to, as it seemed, sadly rough usage. And the context informed
Julius, in jingling verse, how that poor Hagar, the forester's
daughter, inconveniently defiant of custom and of common
sense, had stoutly refused to be cast forth into the social
wilderness, along with her small Ishmael and a few pounds
sterling as price of her honour and content, until she had stood
face to face with Sarah, the safely church-wed, if none too
reputable, wife. It informed him, further, how the said small
Ishmael — whether alarmed by the violence of my lady's men-
servants, or wanting merely, childlike, to welcome his return-
ing father — ran to the coach door and clambered on the step ;
whence, thanks to a vicious thrust — so declares the chap-book
— from " the painted Jezebel within," he fell, while the horses
plunging forward caused the near hind wheel of the heavy,
lumbering vehicle to pass over his legs, almost severing them
from his body just above the knee.

Thereupon — and here the homely language of the gutter
poet rose to a level of rude eloquence — the outraged mother,
holding the mangled and dying child in her arms, cursed the
man who had brought this ruin upon her. Cursed him and
his descendants, to the sixth and seventh generations, good and
bad alike. Declaring, moreover, that as judgment on his per-
fidy and lust, no owner of Brockhurst should reach the life
limit set by the Psalmist, and die quiet and Christianly in his
bed, until a somewhat portentous event should have taken
place — namely, until, as the jingling rhyme set forth : —

** — a fatherless babe to the birth shall have come,
Of brother or sister shall he have none,
But red-gold hair and eyes of blue
And a foot that will never know stocking or shoe.
If he opens his purse to the lamenter's cry,
Then the woe shall lift and be laid for aye."

Julius March, his spare, black figure crouched together, sat
•on the top step of the library ladder musing. His first move-

THE CLOWN 33

mcnt had been one of refined and contemptuous disgust. Sen-
suality and the tragedies engendered by it were so wholly for-
eign to his nature and mental outlook, that it was difficult to
him to reckon with them seriously and admit the very actual
and permanent part which they play and always have played
in the great drama of human life. It distressed, it, in a sense^
annoyed him that the legend of Brockhurst, which had caused
him elaborate imaginative terrors during his childhood, should
belong to this gross and vulgar order of history. Yet indu-
bitably— as he reluctantly admitted — each owner of Brock-
hurst had very certainly found death in the midst of life, and
that according to some rather brutal and bloody pattern. This
might, of course, be judged the result of merest coincidence*
Had he leisure and opportunity to search them out, he could
find, no doubt, plausible explanation of the majority of cases.
Only that fact of persistent violence, persistent accident, did
remain. It stared him in the face, so to speak, defiant of de--
nial. And the deduction, consequent upon it, stared him in
the face likewise. He was constrained to confess that the first
clause of the deeply wronged mother's prediction had found
ample fulfilment. — Julius paused, shifted his position uneasily^
somewhat fearful of the conclusions of his own reasoning.

For how about the second clause of that same prediction ?
How about the advent of that strange child of promise, wha
preordained in his own flesh to bear the last and heaviest stroke
at the hands of retributive justice, should, rightly bearing it,
bring salvation both to himself and to his race ? Behind the
coarse and illiterate presentiment of the chap-book, Julius be-
gan dimly to apprehend a somewhat majestic moral and spir-
itual tragedy, a tragedy of vicarious suffering crowned by tri-
umphant emancipation. Thus has God, as he reflected with
a self-condemnatory emotion of humility, chosen the base
things of the world and those which are despised — yea, and
the things which are not, to bring to nought the things which
are. — His heart, hungry of all martyrdom, all saintly doings,
went forth to welcome the idea. But then, he asked himself
almost awed, in this sceptical, rationalistic age, are such semi-
miraculous moral examples still possible ? And answered,
with strong exultation — as one finding practical justification
of a long, though silently, cherished conviction — yes, that
even now, nineteen centuries after the death of that divine

34 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

'^ Saving Victim to whose service he had devoted his life and the
^ joys of his manhood, such nobly sad and strange happenings
^ >may still be.

^ And even u^hile he thus answered, his eyes were drawn In-

A voluntarily to the portrait of the unsightly dwarf, painted by

^ Velasguez. The broad shaft of sunlight had crept backward,

i^ away Irom it, leaving the canvas unobtrusive, no longer

/harshly evident either in violence of colour or grotesqueness of
form. It had become part of the great whole, merely modu-
/lated to gracious harmony with the divers objects surround-
ing it, and like them softly overlaid by a diffused and silvery
light.

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH JULIUS MARCH BEHOLDS THE VISION OF THE

NEW LIFE

X-TE was aroused from these austere, yet, to him, inspiring
reflections by the click of an opening door and the
sound of women's voices. Mademoiselle de Mirancourt
paused on the threshold, one hand raised in quick admiration,
the other renting on Lady Calmady's arm.

" But this is superb," she cried gaily. " Your charming
King Richard, Cceur cT Or^ has given you a veritable palace to
inhabit ! "

" Ah yes ! King Richard has indeed given me a palace to
live in. But, better still, he has given me his dear heart of
gold in which to hide the life of my heart forever and a day."

Katherine's words came triumphantly, more as song than as
speech. She caught the elder woman's upraised hand gently
and kissed it, looking her, meanwhile, full in the face. — " I am
happy, very, very happy, best and dearest," she said. " And
it is so delicious to be happy."

" Ah, my child, my beautiful child," Mademoiselle de Mi-
rancourt cried.

There were tears in her pretty, patient eyes. For if youth
finds age pathetic with the obvious pathos of spent body and
of tired mind which has ceased to greatly hope, how far more

THE CLOWN 35

deeply pathetic does age, from out its sad and settled wisdom,
find poor gallant youth and all its still unbroken trust in the
beneficence of destiny, its unbroken faith in the enchantments
of earth !

Meanwhile, Julius March — product as he was of an arbi-
trary system of thought and training, and by so much divorced
from the natural instincts of youth and age alike, the confident
joy of the one, the mature acquiescence of the other — in over-
hearing this brief conversation suffered embarrassment amount-
ing almost to shame. For not only Katherine's words, but
the vital gladness of her voice, the sweet exuberance of her
manner as she bent, in all her spotless bravery of white and
rose, above the elder woman's hand and kissed it, came to
him as a revelation before which he shrank with a certain
fearful modesty. Julius had read of love in the poets, of
course ; but, in actual fact, he had never wooed a woman, nor
heard from any woman's lips the language of intimate devo-
tion. The cold embraces of the Church — a church, as he too
often feared, rendered barren by schism and heresy — were the
only embraces he had ever suffered. Things read of and
things seen, moreover, are singularly different in power. And
so he trembled now at the mystery of human love, actual and
concrete, here close beside him. He was, indeed, moved to
the point of losing his habitual suavity of demeanour. He
rose hastily and descended the library steps, forgetful of the
handful of chap-books, which fell in tattered and dusty con-
fusion upon the floor.

Katherine looked round. Until now she had been unob-
servant of his presence, innocent of other audience than the
old friend, to whom it was fitting enough to confide dear
secrets. For an instant she hesitated, embarrassed too, her
pride touched to annoyance, at having laid bare the treasures
of her heart thus unwittingly. She was tempted to retreat
through the still open door, into the librar}^, and leave the re-
view of the Long Gallery and its many relics to a more con-
venient season. But it was not Katherine's habit to run
away, least of all from the consequences of her own actions.
And her sense of justice compeHed her to admit that, in this
case, the indiscretion — if indiscretion indeed there was — lay
with her, in not having se-en poor Julius ; rather than witlv
him, in having overheard her little outburst. So- she called to-

36 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

him in friendly greeting, and came swiftly towards him down
the length of the great room.

And Julius stood waiting for her, leaning against the frame
of the library ladder; a spare, black figure, notably at variance
with the broad glory of sunshine and colour reigning out of
doors.

His usually quick instinct of courtesy was in abeyance,
shaken, as he still was, and confused by the revelation that
had just come to him. He looked at Lady Calmady with a
new and agitated understanding. She made so fair a picture
that he could only gaze dumbly at it. Tall in fact, Katherine
was rendered taller by the manner — careless of passing fashion
—in which her hair was dressed The warm, brown mass
of it, rolled up and back from her forehead, showed all the
perfect oval of her face. Tender, lovely, smiling, her blue-
brown eyes soft and lustrous, with a certain wondering seren-
ity in their depths, there was yet something majestic about
Katherine Calmady. No poor or unworthy line marred the
nobility of her face or figure. The dark, arched eyebrows,
the well-chiselled and slightly aquiline nose, the firm chin and
throat, the shapely hands, all denoted harmony and complete-
ness of development, and promised a reserve of strength, ready
to encounter and overcome if danger were to be met. Years
afterwards, the remembrance of Katherine as he just then saw
her would return upon Julius, as prophetic of much. Quail-
ing in spirit, still reluctant, in his asceticism, to comprehend
and reckon with her personality in the fulness of its present
manifestation, he answered her at random, and with none of
the pause and playful evasiveness usual to his speech.

'^ I am very glad we have found you," Katherine said
frankly. " I was afraid, by the fact of your not coming to
breakfast, that you were overtired. We talked late last night.
Did we weary you too much ? "

" Existence in itself is vexatiously wearisome at times — at
least to feeble persons, like myself."

Katherine's smik faded. She looked at him with charming
solicitude.

"Ah ! you arc not well," she declared. " Go out and en-
joy the sunshine. Leave all those stupid books. Go," she
repeated, " order one of the horses. Go and meet Richard,
He has gone over to look at the new lodge. You could ride

THE CLOWN 37

all the way through the east woods in the cool. See, I will
put these tidy."

And, as she spoke, Katherine stooped to pick up the scat-
tered chap-books from the ground. But, in the last few mo-
ments, while looking at her, yet further understanding had
overtaken Julius March. Not only the mystery of human
love, but the mystery of dawning motherhood had come close
to him. And he put Lady Calmady aside with a determina-
tion of authority somewhat surprising.

" No, no, pardon me ! They are dusty, they will soil your
hands. You must not touch those books," he said.

Katherine straightened herself up. Her face was slightly
flushed, her expression full of kindly amusement.

" Dear Julius, you are very imperative. Surely I may
make my hands dirty, once in a way, in a good cause ? They
will wash, you know, just as well as your own, after all."

"A thousand times better. Still, I will ask you not to
touch those books. I have valid reasons. For one, an evil
beast in the form of a spider has dwelt among them. I dis-
turbed it and it fled, looking as though it had grown old in
trespasses and sins. It seemed to me a thing of ill omen."

He tried to steady himself, to treat the matter lightly. Yet
his speech struck Katherine as hurried and anxious, out of all
proportion to the matter in hand.

" Poor thing — and you killed It ? Yet it couldn't help
being ugly, I suppose," she answered, not without a touch of
malice.

Julius was on his knees, his long, thin fingers gathering up
the tattered pages, ranging them into a bundle, tying them to-
gether with the tag of rusty, black ribbon aforesaid. For an
unreasoning, fierce desire was upon him — very alien to his
usual gentle attitude of mind — to shield this beautiful woman
from all acquaintance with the foul story set forth in those
little books. To shield her, indeed, from more than merely
that. — For a vague presentiment possessed him that she might,
in some mysterious way, be intimately involved in the final
developments of that same story which, though august, were
so full of suffering, so profoundly sad. Meanwhile, in his
excitement, he replied less to her gently mocking question
than to the importunities of his own thought.

" No," he said, ^' I let it go. I begin to fear it is useless

38 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

to attempt to take short-cuts to the extinction of what is evil.
It does not cease, but merely changes its form. Unwillingly I
liave learned that. No violent death is possible to things evil."

Julius rose to his feet. ^^

"They must go on," he continued, "till, in the merciful
providence of God, their term is reached, till their power is
exhausted, till they have worn themselves out."

Lady Calmady turned and moved thoughtfully towards the
far end of the room, where the sunshine still slanted in through
the open casements of the bay window, and where the deli-
cate, little spinster lady stood awaiting her. Amorous pigeons
cooed below on the string-course. Bees droned sleepily
against the glass.

" But," she said, in gentle remonstrance, " that is a rather
terrible doctrine, Julius. Surely it is not quite just ; for it
would seem to leave us almost hopelessly at the mercy of the
wrong-doing of others."

"Yes, but are we not, just that — all of us at the mercy of
the wrong-doing of others ? — The courageous forever suffer-
ing for the cowardly, the wise for the ignorant and brutish,
the just for the unjust ? Is not this, perhaps, the very deep-
est lesson of our religion ? "

" Oh no, no ! " Katherine cried incredulously. " There is
something at once deeper and more comforting than that.
Remember, in the beginning, when God created all things and
reviewed His handiwork. He pronounced it very good."

Julius was recovering his suavity. The little packet of chap-
books rested safely in the pocket of his coat.

" But that was a long time ago," he said, smiling.

They reached the bay window. Katherine took her old
friend's hand once again and laid it caressingly upon her arm.

" Pardon me for keeping you waiting, dearest," she said.
" Julius is in fault. He will argue with me about the date of
the creation, and that takes time. He declares it was so long
ago that everything has had time to grow very old and go very
wrong. But, indeed, he is mistaken. Agree with me, tell
him he is mistaken ! The world is deliciously young yet. It
was only made a little over twenty-two years ago. I must
know, for I came into it then. And I found it all as new as
I was myself, and a thousand times prettier — quite adorably
gay, adorably fresh."

THE CLOWN ^ 39

Katherine's voice sank, grew fuller in tone. She gazed out
over the brilliant garden to the woodland shimmering in the
noontide heat. Then she looked at Julius March, her eyes
and lips eloquent with joyous conviction.

" Indeed, I think, God makes His whole creation over
again for each one of us, it is so beautiful. As in the begin-
ning, so now," she said j " behold it is very good — ah yes ! who
can doubt that — it is very good ! "

" Amen. To you may it ever so continue," Julius mur-
mured, bowing his head.

That evening there was a dinner party at Brockhurst. Lord
Denier brought his handsome second wife. She was a Hel-
lard, and took the judge faute de mieux^ so said the wicked
world, rather late in life. The Cathcarts of Newlands and
their daughter Mary came ; and Roger Ormiston too, who,
being off duty, had run down from London for a few days*
partridge shooting, bringing with him his cousin Colonel St.
Quentin — invalided home, to his own immense chagrin, in the
midst of the Afghan war. On the terrace, after dinner, for
the night was warm enough for the whole company to take
coffee out of doors. Lady Calmady — incited thereunto by her
brother — had persuaded Mary Cathcart to sing, accompanying
herself on her guitar. The girl's musical gifts were of no ex-
traordinary order ; but her young contralto was true and sweet.
The charm of the hour and the place, moreover, was calcu-
lated to heighten the effect of the Jacobite songs and old-world
love ditties which she selected.

Roger Ormiston unquestionably found her performance suf-
ficiently moving. But then the girl's frank manner, her warm,
gipsy-like colouring, and the way in which she could sit a
horse, moved him also ; had done so, indeed, ever since he first
saw her, as quite a child, some eight or nine years ago, on one
of his earliest visits to Brockhurst, fighting a half-broken,
Welsh pony that refused at a grip by the roadside. The little
maiden, her face pale, for once, from concentration of pur-
pose, had forced the pony over the grip. Then, slipping out
of the saddle, she coaxed and kissed the rough, unruly, little
beast, with tears of apology for the hard usage to which she
had been obliged to subject it. So stout, yet so tender, a
heart, struck Roger as an excellent thing in woman. And
now, listening to the full, rounded notes and thrumming of the

40 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

guitar strings, in the evening quiet under the stars, he wished,
remorsefully, that he had never been guilty of any pleasant
sins, that his record was cleaner, his tastes less expensive ;
that he was a better fellow all round, in short, than he was,
because, then, perhaps

And Julius March, too, found the singing somewhat agita-
ting, though to him the personality of the singer was of small
account. Another personality, and a train of feeling evoked
by certain new aspects of it, had pursued him all the day long.
Katherine, mindful of her somewhat outspoken divergence of
opinion from his, in the morning, had been particularly
thoughtful of his pleasure and entertainment. At dinner she
directed the conversation upon subjects interesting to him, and
had thereby made him talk more unreservedly than was his
wont. Not even the most saintly of human beings is wholly
indifferent to social success. Julius was conscious of a stir-
ring of the blood, of a subdued excitement. These sensations
were pleasurable. But his training had taught him to distrust
pleasurable sensations as too often the offspring of very ques-
tionable parentage. And, while Mary Cathcart's voice still
breathed upon the fragrant night air, he, standing on the out-
skirts of the listening company, slipped away unperceived.

His study, a long narrow room occupying, with his bed-
room, the ground floor of the chapel wing of the house, struck
chill as he entered it. Above the range of pigeon-holes and
little drawers, forming the back of the writing-table, two can-
dles burned on either side of a bronze pieta^ which Julius had
brought back with him from Rome. On the broad slab of
the table below were the many quires of foolscap forming the
library catalogue, neatly numbered and lettered -, while his
diary lay open upon the blotting-pad, ready for the chronicle
of the past day. Beside it was the packet of chap-books, still
tied together with their tag of rusty ribbon.

It was Julius March's habit to exchange his coat for a cas-
sock in the privacy of his study. He did so now, and knotted
a black cord about his waist. Let no one underrate the sus-
taining power of costume, whether it take the form of ballet-
skirt or monk's frock. Human nature is but a weak thing at
best, and needs outward and visible signs, not only to support
its faith in its deity, but even its faith in its own poor self !
Of persons of sensitive temperament and limited experience,

THE CLOWN 41

such as Julius, this is particularly true. Putting off his secu-
lar garment, as a rule, he could put off secular thoughts as
well. Beneath the severe and scanty folds of the cassock
there was small space for remembrance of the pomp and glory
of this perishing world. At least be hoped so. To-night,
importuned as he had been by scenes and emotions quite other
than ecclesiastical, Julius literally sought refuge in his cassock.
It represented " port after stormy seas " — home, after travel in
lands altogether foreign.

He took St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei from its place in
the book shelves lining one side of the room. There should
be peace in the soul, surely, emancipation from questioning of
transitory things in reading of the City of God ? But, alas,
his attention strayed. That sense of subdued excitement was
upon him yet. He thought of the conversation at dinner, of
brilliant speeches he might have made, of the encouragement
of Katherine's smiling eyes and sympathetic speech, of the
scene in the gallery that morning, of Mary Cathcart's old-time
love ditties. The City of God was far off. All these were
things very near at hand. Notwithstanding the scanty folds
of the cassock^ they importuned him still.

Pained at his own lack of poise and seriousness, Julius re-
turned the volume of St. Augustine to its place, and, sitting
down at the writing-table prepared to chronicle the day's
events. Perhaps by putting a statement of them on paper he
could rid himself of their all too potent influence. But his
thought was tumultuous, words refused to come in proper or-
der and sequence; and Julius abhorred that erasures should
mar the symmetry of his pages. Impatiently he pushed the
diary from him. Clearly it, like the City of God, was des-
tined to wait.

The guests had departed. He had heard the distant calling
of voices in friendly farewell, the rumble of departing wheels.
The night was very soft and mild. He would go out and
walk the gray flags of the terrace, till this unworthy restless-
ness gave place to reason and calm.

Passing along the narrow passage, he opened the door on to
the garden-hall. And there paused. The hall itself, and the
inner side of the carven arches of the arcade were in dense
shadow. Beyond stretched the terrace bathed in moonlight,
which glittered on the polished leaves of the little orange trees.

42 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

on the leaded panes of the many windows, and strangely
transmuted the colours of the range of pot-flowers massed be-
neath them along the base of the house. It was a fairy world
upon which Julius looked forth. Nor did it need suitable in-
habitants. Pacing slowly down the centre of the terrace came
Richard and Katherine Calmady, hand in hand. Tall, grace-
ful, strong in the perfection of their youth and their great de-
votion, amid that ethereal brightness, they seemed as two
heroic figures — immortal, fairy lovers moving through the
lovely wonder of that fairy-land. As they drew near, Kather-
ine stopped, leant — with a superb abandon — back against her
husband, resting her hand on his shoulder, drew his arm
around her waist for support, drew his face down to her up-
turned face until their lips met, while the moonlight played
upon the jewels on her bare arms and neck and gleamed softly
on the surface of her white, satin dress.

To true lovers the longest kiss is all too sadly short — a
thing brief almost in proportion to its sweetness. But to
Julius March, watching from the blackness of the doorway, it
seemed a whole eternity before Richard Calmady raised his
head. Then Julius turned and fled down the passage and
back into the chill study, where the candles burned on either
side the image of the Virgin Mother cradling the dead Christ
upon her knee.

Gentle persons, breaking from the lines of self-restraint,
run to a curious violence in emotion. All day long, shrink
from it, ignore it, as he might, a moral storm had been brew-
ing. Now it broke. Not from those two lovers did Julius
turn thus in amazement and terror; but from just that from
which it is impossible for any one to turn in actual fact —
namely from himself. He was appalled by the narrowness of
his own past outlook; appalled by the splendour of that herit-
age which, by his own act, he had forfeited. The cassock
ceased, indeed, to be a refuge, the welcome livery of home and
rest. It had become a prison-suit, a badge of slavery, against
which his whole being rebelled. For the moment — happily
violence is short-lived, only for a very little while do even the
gentlest persons " see red " — asceticism appeared to him as a
blasphemy against the order of nature and of nature's God.
His vow of perpetual chastity, made with so passionate an en-
thusiasm, for the moment appeared to him an act of absolutely

Yr THE CLOWN 43

monstrous vanity and self-conceit. In his stupid ignorance he
had tried to be wiser than his Maker, preferring the ordinances
of man, to the glad and merciful purposes of God. In so do-
ing had he not, only too possibly, committed the unpardon-
able sin, the sin against the Holy Ghost ?

Poor Julius, his thought had indeed run almost humorously
mad ! Yet it was characteristic of the man that the breaking
of his self-imposed bonds never occurred to him. Made in
ignorance, unwitnessed though his vow might be, it remained
inviolable. He never, even in this most heated hour of his
trial, doubted that.

Stretching out his arms, he clenched his hands in anguish
of spirit. The sacerdotal pride, the subjective joys of self-
consecration, the mental luxury of feeling himself different
from others, singled out, set apart, — all the Pharisee, in short,
in Julius March, — was sick to death. He had supposed he
was living to God — and now it appeared to him he had lived
only to himself. He had trusted God too little, had come
near reckoning the great natural laws — which, after all, must
be of God's ordering — common and unclean. Katherine was
right. The eternal purpose is joy, not sorrow ; youth and
health, not age and decay ; thankful acceptance, not fastidious
rejection and fear. Katherine — yes, Katherine — and there
the young man's wild tirade stopped —

He flung himself down in front of the writing-table, lean-
ing his elbows on it, pressing his face upon his folded arms.
For in good truth, what did it all amount to ? Not outraged
laws of nature, not sins against the Holy Ghost; but just
simply this, that the common fate had overtaken him. He
loved a woman, and in so loving had, at last, found himself.

The most vital experiences are beyond language. When
Julius looked up, his eyes rested upon the bronze pieta^ age-
old witness to the sanctity of motherhood and of suflFering
alike. His face was wet with tears. He was faint and weak ;
yet a certain calm had come to him. He no longer quarreled
— though his attitude towards them was greatly changed —
either with his priestly calling or his rashly made vow. Not
as sources of pride did he now regard them ; but as searching
discipline to be borne humbly and faithfully, to the honour —
as he prayed — both of earthly and heavenly love. He loved
Katherine, but he loved her husband and that with the fulness

44 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

of a loyal and equal friendship. And so no taint was upon
his love, of this he felt certain. Indeed, he asked nothing
better than that things might continue as they were at Brock-
hurst ; and that he might continue to warm his hands a little
— only a little — in the dear sunshine of Richard and Kath-
erine Calmady's perfect love.

As Julius rose his knees gave under him. He rested both
hands heavily on the table, looked down, saw the unsightly
packet of dirty chap-books. Again, and almost with a cry,
he prayed that things might continue as they were at Brock-
hurst.

" Give peace in my time, oh Lord ! " he said. Then he
wrapped up the little bundle carefully, sealed and labelled it,
and locked it away in one of the table-drawers.

Thus, kneeling before the image of the stricken Mother
and the dead Christ, did Julius March behold the Vision of
the New Life. But the page of his diary, on which surely a
matter of so great importance should have been duly chron-
icled, remains to this day a blank.

CHAPTER VI

ACCIDENT OR DESTINY, ACCORDING TO YOUR HUMOUR

/^N the i8th of October that year, St. Luke's day, a man
^^ died, and this was the manner of his passing.

There was nothing more to be done. Dr. Knott had gone
out of the red drawing-room on the ground floor into the
tapestry-hung dining-room next door, which struck cold as
the small hours drew on towards the dawn. And Julius
March, after reciting the prayer in which the Anglican
Church commends the souls of her departing children to the
merciful keeping of the God who gave them, had followed
him. The doctor was acutely distressed. He hated to lose a
patient. He also hated to feel emotion. It made him angry.
Moreover, he was intolerant of the presence of the clergy and
of their ministrations in sick rooms. He greeted poor Julius
rather snarlingly.

" So your work's through as well as mine," he said, " No

THE CLOWN 45,

disrespect to your cloth, Mr. March, but Fm not altogether
sorry. I dare say Pm a bit of a heathen ; but I can't help
fancying the dying know more of death and the way to meet
it, than any of us can teach them.'*

A group of men-servants stood about the open door, at the
further end of the room, with lies, the steward, and Mr. Tom
Chifney, the trainer from the racing stables. The latter ad-
vanced a little and, clearing his throat, inquired huskily —

" No hope at all, doctor ? "

" Hope ? " he returned impatiently. — The lamp on the
great bare dining-table burned low, and John Knott's wide
mouth, conical skull and thick, ungainly person looked
ogreish, almost brutal in the uncertain light. — " There never
was a grain of hope from the first, except in Sir Richard's fine
constitution. He is as sound as only a clean-living man of
thirty can be. — I wish there were a few more like him, though
your beastly diseases do put money into my pocket. — That
offered us a bare chance, and we were bound to act on that
chance " — his loose lips worked into a bitterly humorous
smile — " and torture him. Well, I've seen a good many men
under the knife before now, and I tell you I never saw one
who bore himself better. Men and horses alike, it's breeding
that tells when it comes to the push. You know that, eh,
Chifney ? "

In the red drawing-room, where the drama of this sad night
centred, Roger Ormiston had dropped into a chair by the fire-
side, his head sunk on his chest and his hands thrust into his
pockets. He was very tired, very miserable. A shocking
thing had happened, and, in some degree, he held himself re-
sponsible for that happening. For was it not he who had
been so besotted with the Clown, and keen about its training ?
Therefore the young man cursed himself, after the manner of
his kind ; and cursed his luck, in that, if this thing was to
happen, it ,had not happened to him instead of to Richard
Calmady.

Mrs. Denny, the housekeeper, had retired to a straight-
backed chair stationed against the wall. She sat there, waiting
till the next call should come for her skilful nursing, upright,
her hands folded upon her silk apron, her attitude a model of
discreet and self-respecting repose. Mrs. Denny knew her
place, and had a considerable capacity for letting other per-

46 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

sons know theirs. She ruled the large household with un-
ruffled calm. But, to-night, even her powers of self-control
were heavily taxed ; and though she carried her head high,
she could not help tears coursing slowly down her cheeks, and
falling sadly to the detriment of the goiiered frills of her white,
lawn cross-over.

And Richard Calmady, meanwhile, lay still and very fairly
peaceful upon the narrow camp-bed in the middle of the
room. He had lain there, save during one hour, — the memory
of which haunted Katherine with hideous and sickening per-
sistence,— ever since Tom Chifney, the head-lad from the
stables, and a couple of grooms had carried him in, on a
hurdle, from the steeple-chase course four days ago.

The crimson-covered chairs and sofas, and other furniture
of the large square room, had been pushed back against the
walls in a sort of orderly confusion, leaving a broad passage-
way between the doors at either end, and a wide vacant space
round the bed. At the head of this stood a high, double-
shelved what-not, bearing medicine bottles, cups, basins, rolled
bandages, dressings of rag and lint, a spirit-lamp over which
simmered a vessel containing vinegar, and a couple of shaded
candles in a tall, branched, silver candlestick. The light from
these fell, in intersecting circles, upon the white bed, upon the
man's brown, close curled hair, upon his handsome face —
drawn and sharpened by suffering — and its rather ghastly three
days' growth of beard.

It fell, too, upon Katherine, as she sat facing her husband,
the side of her large easy-chair drawn up parallel to the side
of the bed.

Silently, unlooked for, as a thief in the night, the end of
Katherine's fair world had come. There had been no
time for forethought or preparation. At one step she had
been called upon to pass from the triumph to the terror of
mortal life. But she was a valiant creature ; and her natural
courage was reinforced by the greatness of her love. She met
the blow standing, her brain clear, her mind strong to help.
Only once had she faltered — during the hideous hour when
she waited, pacing the dining-room in the dusk, four evenings
back. For, after consultation with Dr. Jewsbury and Mr.
Thorns of Westchurch, John Knott had told her — with a
gentleness and delicacy a little surprising: in so hard-bitten a

THE CLOWN 47

man — that, owing to the shattered condition of the bone, am-
putation of the right leg was imperative. He added that, only
too probably, the left would have eventually to go too. They
must operate, he said^ and operate immediately. Katherine
had pleaded to be present; but Dr. Knott was obdurate.

'^ My dear lady, you don't know what you ask," he said.
" As you love him, let him be. If you are there it will just
double the strain. He'd suffer for you as well as himself.
Believe me he will be far best alone." ,^,^^

It must be remembered that in 1842 anaesthetics had not
robbed the operating-room of half its horrors. The victim
went to execution wide-awake, with no mercy of deadened
senses and dulled brain. And so Katherine had paced the
dining-room, hearing at intervals, through the closed doors,
the short peremptory tones of the surgeons, fearing she heard
more and worse sounds than those. They were hurting him,
sorely, sorely, dismembering and disfiguring the dear, living
body which she loved. A tempest of unutterable woe swept
over her. Breaking fiercely away from her brother and
Denny — who strove to comfort her — she beat her poor, lovely
head against the wall. But that, so far, had been her one
moment of weakness. Since then she had fought steadily,
with a certain lofty cheerfulness, for the life she so desired to
save. The horror of the second operation had been spared
her; but only because it might but too probably hasten, rather
than retard, the approaching footsteps of death. Mortification
had set in, in the bruised and mangled limb forty-eight hours
ago. And now the scent of death was in the air. The awful
presence drew very near. Yet only when doctor and priest
alike rose and went, when her brother moved away, and even
the faithful housekeeper stepped back from the bedside, did
Katherine's mind really grasp the truth. Her well-beloved lay
dying; and human tenderness, human skill, be they never so
great, ceased to avail.

She was worn by the long vigil. Her face was colourless.
Yet perhaps Katherine's beauty had never been more rare and
sweet than as she sat there, leaning a little forward in the
eagerness of her watchfulness. The dark circles about her
eyes made them look very large and sombre. The corners of
her mouth turned down and her under-lip quivered now and
then, giving her expression a childlike piteousness of appeal.

48 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

There was no trace of disorder in her appearance. Her white
dressing-gown and all its pretty ribbons and laces were spot-
lessly fresh. Her hair was carefully dressed as usual — high at
the back, showing the nape of her neck, her little ears, and
the noble poise of her head. Katherine was not one of those
women who appear to imagine that slovenliness is the proper
exponent of sorrow.

Still, for all her high courage, as the truth came home to
her, her spirit began to falter for the second time. It is com-
paratively easy to endure while there is something to be done ;
but it is almost intolerable, specially to the young when life is
strong in them, merely to sit by and wait. Katherine's over-
wrought nerves began to play cruel tricks upon her, carrying
her back in imagination to that other hideous hour of waiting,
in the dining-room, four evenings ago. Again she seemed to
hear the short peremptory tones of the surgeons, and those
worse things — the stifled groan of one in the extremity of
physical anguish, and the grate of a saw. These maddened
her with pity, almost with rage. She feared that now, as
then, she might lose her self-mastery and do some wild and
desperate thing. She tried to keep her attention fixed on the
quick irregular rise and fall of the linen sheet expressing the
broad, full curve of the young man's chest, as he lay flat on
his back, his eyes closed, but whether in sleep or in uncon-
sciousness she did not know. As long as the sheet rose and
fell he was alive at all events, still with her. But she was too
exhausted for any sustained effort of will ; and her glance
wandered back to, and followed with agonised comprehension,
the formless, motionless elevation and depression of that same
sheet towards the foot of the bed.

The air of the room seemed to grow more oppressive, the
silence to deepen, and with it the terrible tension of her mind
increased. Suddenly she started to her feet. The logs burn-
ing in the grate had fallen together with a crash, sending a
rush of ruddy flame and an innumerable army of hurrying
sparks up the wide chimney. All the mouldings of the ceil-
ing— all the crossing bars and sinuous lines of the richly-
worked pattern, all the depending bosses and roses of it, ail
the foliations of the deep cornice — sprang into bold relief,
outlined, splashed, and stained with living scarlet. And this
universal redness of carpet, curtains, furniture, and now of

THE CLOWN 49

ceiling, even of white-draped bed, suggested to Katherine's
distracted fancy another thing — unseen, yet known during her
other hour of waiting — namely blood.

Roused by the crash of the falling logs and the rustle of
Katherine's garments as she sprang up, Richard Calmady
opened his eyes. For a few seconds his glance wavered in
vague distress and perplexity. Then as fuller consciousness
returned of how it all was with him, with a slight lifting of
the eyebrows his glance steadied upon Katherine and he
smiled.

" Ah ! my poor Kitty," he whispered, " it takes a long time,
doesn't it, this business of dying ? "

Katherine's evil fancies vanished. As soon as the demand
for action came she grew calm and sane. The ceiling and
sheets were white again and her mind was clear.

" Are you easy, my dearest ? " she asked ; " in less pain ? "

" No," he said, '' no, I'm not in pain. But everything seems
to sink away from me, and I float right out. It's all dream
and mist — except — except just now your face."

Katherine's lips quivered too much for speech. She moved
swiftly across to the what-not at the head of the bed. If he
did not suffer, there could be no selfishness, surely, in trying
to keep death at bay for a little space yet ? But, alas, with
what grotesquely paltry and inadequate weapons are all — even
the most gallant — reduced to fighting death at the last ! Here,
on the one hand, a half wine-glass of champagne in a china
feeding-cup, with a teapot-like spout to it, or a few spoonfuls
of jelly, backed by the passion of a woman's heart. And, on
the other hand, ranged against this pitiful display of absurdly
limited resources, — as the hosts of the Philistines against the
little army of Israel, — resistless laws of nature, incalculably
far-reaching forces, physical and spiritual, the interminable
progression of cause and effect.

Denny joined Lady Calmady at the table. The two women
held brief consultation. Then the housekeeper went round to
the farther side of the bed, and slipping her arm under the pil-
lows gently raised Richard's head and shoulders, while Kather-
ine kneeling beside him held the spout of the feeding-cup to
his lips.

" Must I ? I don't think I can manage *> " he said, dra'?'-*
ing away slightly and closing his eyes.

50 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

But Katherlne persisted.

" Oh ! try to drink it/' she pleaded, " never mind how lit-
tle— only try. Help me to keep you hece just as long as I
can."

The young man's glance steadied on to her once again, and
his eyes and lips smiled the same faint, wholly gracious smile.

" AH right, my beloved," he said. " A little higher, Denny,
please."

Not without painful effort and a choking contraction of the
throat, he swallowed a few drops. But the greater part of the
draught spilt out sideways, and would have dribbled down on
to the pillows had not Katherine held her handkerchief to his
mouth.

Ormiston, who had been standing at the foot of the bed in
the hope of rendering some assistance, ground his teeth to-
gether with a half-audible imprecation, and went slowly over
to the fireplace again. He had supposed himself as miserable
as he well could be before. But this incident of the feeding-
cup was the climax, somehow. It struck him as an intolera-
ble humiliation and outrage that Richard Calmady, splendid
fellow as he was, gifted, high-bred gentleman, should, of all
men, come to this sorry pass ! He was filled with impotent
fury. And was it this pass, indeed, he asked himself, to which
every human creature must needs come one day ? Would he,
Roger Ormiston, one day, find himself thus weak and broken;
his body — now so lively a source of various enjoyment — de-
graded into a pest-house, a mere dwelling-place of suffering
and corruption ? The young man gripped the high, narrow
mantel-shelf with both hands and pressed his forehead down
between them. He really had not the nerve to watch what
was going forward over there any longer. It was too painful.
It knocked all the manhood out of him. But for very shame,
before those two calm, devoted women, he would have broken
down and wept.

Presently Richard's voice reached him, feeble yet uncom-
plaining.

" I am so sorry, but you see it's no use, Kitty. The ma-
chinery won't work. Let me lie flat again, Denny, please.
That's better, thanks."

Then after a few moments of laboured breathing, he added — •

"You mustn't trouble any more, it only disappoints you.

Y( THE CLOWN ji

We have just got to submit to fact, my beloved. I've taken
my last fence.'*

Ormiston's shoulders heaved convulsively as he leaned his
forehead against the cold, marble edge of the chimneypiece.
His brother-in-law's words brought the whole dreadful picture
up before him. Oh ! that cursed slip and fall, that struggling,
plunging, frenzied horse ! And how the horse had plunged
and struggled, good God ! It seemed as though Chifney, the
grooms, all of them, would never get hold of it or draw Rich-
ard out from beneath the pounding hoofs. And then Ormis-
ton went over his own share in the business again, lamenting,
blaming himself. Yet what more natural, after all, than that
he should have set his affections on the Clown ? Chifney be-
lieved in the horse too — a five-year-old brother of Touch-
stone, resembling, in his black-brown skin and intelligent,
white-reach face, that celebrated horse ; and inheriting — less
enviable distinction — the high shoulders and withers of his sire
Camel, If the Clown did not make a name. Captain Ormis-
ton had sworn, by all the gods of sport, he would never judge
a horse again. And, heaven help us, was this the ghastly way
the Clown's name was to be made then ?

The room grew very quiet again, save for a strange gur-
gling, rattling sound Richard Calmady made, at times, in breath-
ing. Mrs. Denny had retired beyond the circle of firelight.
And Katherine, having drawn her chair a little further for-
ward, so that the foot of the bed might be out of sight, sat
holding her husband's hand, softly caressing his wrist and palm
with her finger-tips. Soon the slow movement of her fingers
ceased, while she felt, in quick fear, for the fluttering, inter-
mittent pulse. Richard's breathing had become more difficult.
He moved his head restlessly and plucked at the sheet with his
right hand. It was a little more than flesh and blood could bear.

Katherine called to him softly under her breath, — " Rich-
ard, Dick, my darling."

"All right, I'm coming."

He opened his eyes wide, as in sudden terror.

" Oh ! I say though, what's happened ? Where am I ? "

Katherine leant down, kissed his hand, caressed it.

" Here, my dearest," she said, ^' at home, at Brockhurst,
with me."

" Ah yes ! " he said, " of course, I remember, I'm dying."

52 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

He waited a little space, and then, turning his head on the
pillow so as to have a better view of her, spoke again : — " I
was floating right out — the under-tow had got me — it was
sucking me down into the deep sea of mist and dreams. I was
so nearly gone — and you brought me back."

" But I wanted you so — I wanted you so," Katherine cried,
smitten with sudden contrition. "I could not help it. Do
you mind ? "

" You silly sweet, could I ever mind coming back to you ? '*
he asked wistfully. " Don't you suppose I would much rather
stay here at Brockhurst, at home, with you — than sink away
into the unknown ? "

" Ah ! my dear," she said, swaying herself to and fro in the
misery of tearless grief.

" And yet I have no call to complain," he went on. " I
have had thirty years of life and health. It is not a small
thing to have seen the sun, and to have rejoiced in one's
youth. And I have had you " — his face hardened and his
breath came short — "you, most enchanting of women."

" My dear, my dear ! " Katherine cried, again bowing her
head.

" God has been so good to me here that — I hope it is not
presumptuous — I can't be much afraid of what is to follow.
The best argument for what will be, is what has been. Don't
you think so ? "

" But you go and I stay," she said. " If I could only go too,
go with you."

Richard Calmady raised himself in the bed, looked hard at
her, spoke as a man in the fulness of his strength.

" Do you mean that ? Would you come with me if you
could — come through the deep sea of mist and dreams, to
whatever lies beyond ? "

For all answer Katherine bent lower, her face suddenly ra-
diant, notwithstanding its pallor. Sorrow was still so new a
companion to her that she would dare the most desperate ad-
ventures to rid herself of its hateful presence. Her reason
and moral sense were in abeyance, only her poor heart spoke.
She laid hold of her husband's hands and clasped them about
her throat.

" Let us go together, take me," she prayed. " I love you,
I will not be left. Closer, Dick, closer."

THE CLOWN 53

*' Thank God ! I am strong enough even yet," he said
fiercely, while his jaw set, and his grasp tightened somewhat
dangerously upon her throat. Katherine looked into his eyes
and laughed. The blood was tingling through her veins.

" Ah ! dear love/' she panted, ^^ if you knew how delicious
it is to be a little hurt ! "

But her ecstasy was short-lived, as ecstasy usually is. Rich-
ard Calmady unclasped his hands and dropped back against
the pillows, putting her away from him with a certain
authority.

" My beloved one, do not tempt me,*' he said, " we must
remember the child. The devil of jealousy is very great,
even when one lies, as I do now, more than half dead." He
turned his head away, and his voice shook. "Ten years
hence, twenty years hence, you Vv Jl be as beautiful — more so,
very likely — than ever. Other men will see you, and I "

"You will be just what you were and always have been to
me,'* Katherine interrupted. " I love you, and shall love."

She answered bravely, taking his hand again and caressing
it, while he looked round and smiled at her. But she grew
curiously cold. She shivered, and had a difficulty in control-
ing her speech. Her new companion. Sorrow, refused to be
tricked and to leave her, and the breath of sorrow is as sharp
as a wind blowing over ice.

" You have made me perfectly content," Richard Calmady
said presently. "There is nothing I would have changed.
No hour of day — or night — ah, my God ! my God ! — which I
could ask to have otherwise." He paused, fighting a sob
which rose in his throat. ^' Still you are quite young "

" So much the worse for me," Katherine said.

" Oh ! I don't know about that," he put in quietly.
" Anyhow, remember that you are free, absolutely and uncon-
ditionally free. I hold a man a cur who, in dying, tries to
bind the woman he loves."

Katherine shivered. Despair had possession of her.

" Why reason about it ? " she asked. " Don't you see that
to be bound is the only comfort I shall have left ? "

"My poor darling," Richard Calmady almost groaned.

His own helplessness to help her cut him to the quick.
Wealth, and an inherent graciousness of disposition, had
always made it so simple to be of service and of comfort to

54 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

those about him. It was so natural to rule, to decide, to alle-
viate, to give little trouble to others and take a good deal of
trouble on their behalf, that his present and final incapacity in
any measure to shield even Katherine, the woman he wor-
shipped, amazed him. Not pain, not bodily disfigurement, —
though he recoiled, as every sane being must, from these, —
not death itself, tried his spirit so bitterly as his own useless-
ness. All the pleasant, kindly activities of common inter-
course were over. He was removed alike from good deeds
and from bad. He had ceased to have part or lot in the
affairs of living men. The desolation of impotence was upon
him.

For a little time he lay very still, looking up at the firelight
playing upon the mouldings of the ceiling, trying to reconcile
himself to this. His mind was clear, yet, except when actu-
ally speaking, he found it difficult to keep his attention fixed.
Images, sensations began to chase each other across his mental
field of vision ; and his thought, though definite as to detail,
grew increasingly broken and incoherent, small matters in un-
seemly fashion jostling great. He wondered concerning those
first steps of the disembodied spirit, when it has crossed the
threshold of death ; and then, incontinently, he passed to
certain time-honoured jokes and impertinent follies at Eton,
over which he, and Roger and Major St. Quentin had laughed
a hundred times. They amused him greatly even yet. But
he could not linger with them. He was troubled about the
attics of the new lodge, now in building at the entrance to the
east woods. The windows were too small, and he disliked
that blind north gable. There were letters to be answered
too. Lord Fallowfeild wanted to know about something — he
could not remember what — Fallowfeild's inquiries had a habit
of being vague. And through all these things — serious or
trivial — a terrible yearning over Katherine and her baby — the
new, little, human life which was his own life, and which yet
he would never know or see. And through all these things
also, the perpetual, heavy ache of those severed nerves and
muscles, flitting pains in the limb of which, though it was
gone, he had not ceased to be aware. — He dozed off, and
mortal weakness closed down on him, floating him out and
out into vague spaces. And then suddenly, once more, he
felt a horse under him and gripped it with bis knees. He

THE CLOWN 55

was riding, riding, whole and vigorous, with the summer wind
in his face, across vast, flowering pastures towards a great light
on the far horizon, which streamed forth, as he knew, from
the throne of Almighty God.

Choking, with the harsh rattle in his throat, he awoke to
the actual and immediate — to the familiar square room and its
crimson furnishings, to Katherine's sweet, pale face and the
touch of her caressing fingers, to some one standing beside her,
whom he did not immediately recognise. It was Roger —
Roger worn with watching, grown curiously older. But a
certain exhilaration, born of that strange ride, remained by
Richard Calmady. Both ache of body and distress of mind
had abated. He felt a lightness of spirit ; an eagerness, as of
one setting forth on a promised journey, who — not unlovingly,
yet with something of haste — makes his dispositions before he
starts.

" Look here, darling," he said, " you'll let the stables go on
just as usual. Chifney will take over the whole management
of them. You can trust him implicitly. And — that is you,
Roger, isn't it ? — you'll keep an eye on things, won't you, so
that Kitty shall have no bother ? I should like to know noth-
ing was changed at the stables. They've been a great hobby
of mine, and if — if the baby is a boy, he may take after me
and care for them. Make him ride straight, Roger. And
teach him to care for sport for its own sake, dear old man, as a
a gentleman should, not for the money that may come out of it."

He waited, struggling for breath, then his hand closed on
Katherine's.

" I must go," he said. '^ You'll call the boy after me,
Kitty, won't you ? I want there to be another Richard Cal-
paady. My life has been very happy, so, please God, the
name will bring luck."

A spasm took him, and he tried convulsively to push off
the sheet. Katherine was down on her knees, her right arm
under his head, while with her left hand she stripped the bed-
clothes away from his chest and bared his throat.

"Denny, Denny!" she cried, "come — tell me — is this
death ? "

And Ormiston, impelled by an impulse he could hardly
have explained, crossed the room, dragged back the heavy cur-
tains, and flung one of the casements wide open.

56 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

The soft light of autumn dawn flowed in through the great
mullioned window, quenching the redness of fire and candles,
spreading, dim and ghostly, over the white dress and bowed
head of the woman, over the narrow bed and the form of the
maimed and dying man. The freshness of the morning air,
laden with the soothing murmur of the fir forest swaying in
the breath of a mild westerly breeze, laden too with the moist
fragrance of the moorland, of dewy grass, of withered bracken
and fallen leaves, flowed in also, cleansing the tainted atmos-
phere of the room. While, from the springy turf of the
green ride — which* runs eastward, parallel to the lime avenue
— came the thud and suck of hoofs and the voices of the
stable boys, as they rode the long string of dancing, snorting
race-horses out to the training ground for their morning
exercise.

Richard Calmady opened his eyes wide.

"Ah, it's daylight ! " he cried, in accents of joy fulness. " I
am glad. Kiss me, my beloved, kiss me. — You dear — yes,
once more. I have had such a queer night. I dreamt I had
been fearfully knocked about somehow, and was crippled, and
in pain. It is good to wake, and find you, and know I'm
all right after all. God keep you, my dearest, you and the
boy. I am longing to see him — but not just now — let Denny
bring him later. And tell them to send Chifney word I shall
not be out to see the gallops this morning. I really believe
those dreams half frightened me. I feel so absurdly used up.
And then — Kitty, where are you ? — put your arms round me
and I'll go to sleep again."

He smiled at her quite naturally and stroked her cheek.

" My sweet, your face is all wet and cold ! " he said.
" Make Richard a good boy. After all that is what matters

most — Julius will help you Ah 1 look at the sunrise —

why — why "

An extraordinary change passed over him. To Katherine
It seemed like the upward leap of a livid flame. Then his
head fell back and his jaw dropped.

THE CLOWN ST

CHAPTER Vn

.iRS. WILLIAM ORMISTON SACRIFICES A WINE-GLASS TO FATE

A/TRS. ST. QUENTIN'S health became increasingly frag-
ile that autumn; and the weight of the sorrow which
had fallen upon Brockhurst bowed her to the earth. Her de-
sire was to go to Lady Calmady, wrap her about with tender-
ness and strengthen her in patience. But, though the spirit
was willing, the flesh was weak. Daily she assured Madem-
oiselle de Mirancourt that she was better, that she would be
able to start for England in the course of the next week. Yet
day after day, week after week passed by, and still the two
ladies lingered in the pretty apartment of the rue de Rennes.
Day by day, and week by week, moreover, the elder lady^
grew more feeble, left her bed later in the morning, sought it
earlier at night, finally resigned the attempt to leave it at all.
The keepers of Lucia St. Quentin's house of life trembled^
desire — even of gentle ministries — began to fail, the sound of
the grinding was low. Yet neither she, nor her lifelong
friend, nor her doctor, nor the few intimate acquaintances wha
were still privileged to visit her, admitted that she would never
go forth on that journey to England at all ; but only on that
quite other journey, — upon which Richard Calmady had al-
ready set forth in the fulness of his manhood, — and upon
which, the manifold uncertainties of human existence notwith-
standing, we are, each one of us, so perfectly certain to set
forth at last. Silently they agreed with her to treat her in-
creasing weakness with delicate stoicism, to speak of it — if at
all — merely as a passing iiidisposition, so allowing no dreary,
lamentable element to obtrude itself. Sad Mrs. St. Quentin
might be, bitterly sad at heart, perplexed by the rather incom-
prehensible dealings of God with man. Yet, to the end, she
would remain charming, gently gay even, both out of consid-
eration for others and a fine self-respect, since she held it the
mark of a cowardly and ignoble nature to let anything squalid
appear in her attitude towards grief, old age, or death.

S'R SIR RICHARD CALMADY

But Brockhurst she would never see again. The way was
too great for her. And so it came about that when Lady
Calmady's child was born, towards the end of the following
March, no more staid and responsible woman creature of her
family was at hand to support her than that lively, young lady,
her brother, William Ormiston's wife.

Meanwhile, the parish of Sandyiield rejoiced. Thomas
Caryll, the rector, had caused the church bells to be rung im-
mediately on receipt of the good news ; while he selected, as
text for his Sunday morning sermon, those words, usually re-
served to another and somewhat greater advent — " For unto
iis a child is born, unto us a son is given." Good Mr. Caryll
was innocent of the remotest intention of profanity. But his
outlook was circumscribed, his desire to please abnormally
large, and his sense of relative values slight. While that
Lady Calmady should give birth to a son and heir was, after
all, a matter of no small moment — locally considered at all
events.

Brockhurst House rejoiced also, yet it did so not without a
measure of trembling. For there had been twenty-four hours
of acute anxiety regarding Katherine Calmady. And even
now, on the evening of the second day, although Dr. Knott
declared himself satisfied both as to her condition and that of
the baby, an air of mystery surrounded the large state-bed-
room,— where she lay, white and languid, slowly feeling her
way back to the ordinary conditions of existence, — and the
nursery next door. Mrs. Denny, who had taken possession
by right divine of long and devoted service, not only did not
encourage, but positively repulsed visitors. Her ladyship must
not be disturbed. She, the nurse, the baby, in turn, were
sleeping. According to Denny the god of sleep reigned su-
preme in those stately, white-paneled chambers, looking
away, across the valley and the long lines of the elm avenue,
to the faint blue of the chalk downs rising against the south-
•ern sky.

John Knott had driven over, for the second time that day,
in the windy March sunset. He fell in very readily with
Mrs. Ormiston's suggestion that he should remain to dinner.
That young lady's spirits were sensibly on the rise. It is true
that she had wept copiously at intervals while her sister-in-
law's life appeared to be in danger — keeping at the same time

THE CLOWN 59

as far from the sick room as the ample limits of Brockhurst
House allowed, and wishing herself a thousand and one times.
safe back in Paris, where her devoted and obedient husband
occupied a subordinate post at the English Embassy. But
Mrs. Ormiston^s tears were as easily staunched as set flowing*.
And now, in her capacity of hostess, with three gentlemen —
or rather " two and a half, for you can't," as she remarked,
^' count a brother-in-law for a whole one " — as audience, she
felt remarkably cheerful. She had been over to Newlands
during the afternoon, and insisted on Mary Cathcart return-
ing with her — Mrs. Ormiston was a Desmolyns* The Cath-
carts are distantly connected with that family. And, whea
the girl had protested that this was hardly a suitable moment
for a visit to Brockhurst, Charlotte Ormiston had replied, with
tbat hint of a brogue which gave her ready speech its almost
rollicking character : —

" But, my dear child, propriety demands it* I depart my-
self to-morrow. And now that we're recovering our tone I
daren't be left with such a houseful of men on my hands any
longer. While we were tearing our hair over poor Kitty's
possible demise, and agonising as to the uncertain sex of the
baby, it did not matter. But now even that dear creature^
Saint Julius, is beginning to pick up, and looks less as if his.
diet was mouldy peas and his favourite plaything a cat-o'-nine-
tails. Scourge ? — Yes, of course, but it's all the same in the
application of the instrument, you know. And then in your
secret soul, Mary dear/' she added, not unkindly, " there's na
denying it's far from obnoxious to you to spend a trifle of
time in the society of Roger."

Mrs. Ormiston carried her point. It may be stated, in^
passing, that this sprightly, young matron was brilliantly
pretty, though her facial angle might be deemed too acute,
leaving somewhat to be desired in the matter of forehead and
of chin. She was plump, graceful, and neat waisted. Her
skin was exquisitely white and fine, and a charming colour
flushed her cheeks under excitement. Her hair was always
untidy, her hairpins displaying abnormal activity in respect of
escape and independent action. Her eyes were round and
very prominent, suggestive of highly-polished, brown agates*
She was not the least shy or averse to attracting attention-
She laughed much, and practised, as prelude to her laughter^

6b SIR RICHARD CALMADY

an impudently, coquettish, little stare. And finally, as he sat
on her right at dinner, her rattling talk and lightness of calibre
generally struck John Knott as rather cynically inadequate to
the demands made by her present position. Not that he under-
rated her good nature or was insensible to her personal attrac-
tions. But the doctor was in search of an able coadjutor just
then, blessed with a steady brain and a tongue skilled in tender
diplomacies. For there were trying things to be said and
done, and he needed a woman of a fine spirit to do and say
them aright.

"Head like an eft," he said to himself, as course followed
<:ourse, and, while bandying compliments with her, he
watched and listened. "As soon set a harlequin to lead a for-
lorn hope. Well it's to be trusted her husband's some use for
her — that's more than I have anyhow, so the sooner we see
her off the premises the better. Suppose I shall have to fall
back on Ormiston. Bit of a rake, I expect, though in looks
lie is so curiously like that beautiful, innocent, young thing up-
stairs. Wonder how he'll take it ? No mistake, it's a facer ! "

Dr. Knott settled himself back squarely in his chair and
pushed his cheese-plate away from him, while his shaggy eye-
brows drew together as he fixed his eyes on the young man at
the head of the table.

"A facer!" he repeated to himself. "Yes, the ancients
Jcnew what they were about in these awkward matters. The
^modern conscience is disastrously anaemic."

Although it looks on to the terrace, the dining-room at
Brockhurst is among the least cheerful of the living rooms.
The tapestry with which it is hung — representing French
hunting scenes, each panel set in a broad border pattern of
birds, fruits and leaves, interspersed with classic urns and
medallions — is worked in neutral tints of brown, blue, and
gray. The chimneypiece, reaching the whole height of the
wall, is of liver-coloured marble. At the period in question,
it was still the fashion to dine at the modestly early hour of
six ; and, the spring evenings being long, the curtains had
l)een left undrawn, so that the dying daylight without and the
-lamplight within contended rather mournfully for mastery,
while a wild, southeasterly wind, breaking in gusts against
the house front, sobbed at the casements and made a loose
ipane, here and there, click and rattle.

THE CLOWN 6i

And it was in the midst of a notably heavy gust, when des-
sert had been served and the servants had left the room, that
Captain Ormiston leaned across the table and addressed his
sister-in-law.

The young soldier had been somewhat gloomy and silent
during dinner. He was vaguely anxious about Lady Caimady.-
The news of Mrs. St. Quentin was critical, and he cherished
a very true affection for his great-aunt. Had she not been his^
confidant ever since his first term at Eton ? Had she not>
moreover, helped him on several occasions when creditors dis-
played an incomprehensibly foolish pertinacity regarding pay^
ment for goods supplied ? He was burdened, too, by a
prospective sense of his own uncommon righteousness. For^
during the past five months, while he had been on leave at
Brockhurst, assisting Katherine to master the details of the
very various business of the estate, Ormiston had revised his
position and decided on heroic measures of reform. He would
rid himself of debt, forswear expensive London habits, and
those many pleasant iniquities which every great city offers
liberally to such handsome, fine gentlemen as himself. He
actually proposed, just so soon as Katherine could conveni-
ently spare him, to decline from the splendid inactivity of the
Guards, upon the hard work of some line regiment under or-
ders for foreign service. Ormiston was quite affected by con-
templation of his own good resolutions. He appeared to him-
self in a really pathetic light. He would like to have told
Mary Cathcart all about it and have claimed her sympathy and
admiration. But then, she was just precisely the person he
could not tell, until the said resolutions had, in a degree at alj.
events, passed into accomplished fact ! For — as not infre-
quently happens — it was not so much a case of being oif with
the old love before being on with the new; as being off with
the intermediate loves, before being on with the old one again.
To announce his estimable future, was, by implication at all
events, to confess a not wholly estimable past. And so Roger
Ormiston, sitting that night at dinner beside the object of his
best and most honest afi^ections, proved but poor company ;.
and roused himself, not without effort, to say to his sister-in-
law : —

" It's about time to perform the ceremony of the evenings
isn't it, Ella, and drink that small boy's health i ''

62 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

^ '' By all Tnanner of means. I'm all for the observance of
ancient forms and ceremonies. You can never be sure how
much mayn't lie at the bottom of them, and it's best to be on
the safe side of the unseen powers. You'll agree to that now,
Mr. March, won't you ? " — She took a grape skin from be-
tween her neat teeth and flicked it out on to her plate. — " So,
for myself," she went on, " I curtsy nine times to the new
moon, though the repeated genuflexion is perniciously likely to
give me the backache ; touch my hat in passing to the mag-
pies ; wish when I behold a piebald ; and bless my neighbour
devoutly if he sneezes."

At the commencement of this harangue she met her brother-
in-law's rather depreciative scrutiny with her bold little stare
— in his present mood Ormiston found her vivacity tedious,
though he was usually willing enough to laugh at her extrava-
gancies— then she whipped Julius in with a side glance, and
concluded with her round eyes set on Dr. Knott's rough-hewn
and weather-beaten countenance.

" I'm afraid you are disgracefully superstitious, Mrs. Ormis-
ton," the latter remarked.

She was a feather-headed chatterbox, he reflected ; but her
chatter served to occupy the time. And the doctor was by no
means anxious the time should pass too rapidly. He felt
slightly self-contemptuous; but in good truth he would be glad
to put away some few^ glasses of sound port before administer-
ing the aforementioned facer to Captain Ormiston.

"Superstitious?" she returned. "Well I trust my super-
stition is not chronic, but nicely intermittent like all the rest
of my many virtues. Charity begins at home, you know, and
I would not like to keep any of the poor, dear creatures on
guard too long for fear of tiring them out. But I give every
one of them a turn. Dr. Knott, I assure you."

"And that's more than most of us do," he said, smiling
rather savagely. ^'The majority of my acquaintance have a
handsome power of self-restraint in the practice of virtue."

"And I'm the happy exception ! Well, now that's an alto-
gether pretty speech," Mrs. Ormiston cried, laughing. " But

to return to the matter in hand, to this hero of a baby I

dote on babies. Dr. Knott. I've one o: my own of six months
old, and she's a charming child I assure you."

"I don't doubt that for an instant, having the honour of

THE CLOWN 6j

knowing her mother. Couldn't be otherwise than charming if
she tried," the doctor said, reaching out his hand again to the
decanter.

Mrs. Ormiston treated him to her little stare, and then,
looked round the table, putting up one plump, bare arm as she
pushed in a couple of hairpins.

"Ah! but she's a real jewel of a child," she said auda-
ciously. " She's the comfort of my social existence. For
she doesn't resemble me in the least, and therefore my reputa-
tion's everlastingly safe, thanks to her. Why, before the ca-
lumniating thought has had time to arise in your mind, one look
in that child's face will dissipate it, she's so entirely the image
of her father."

There was a momentary silence, but for the sobbing of the
gale and rattling of the casements. Then Captain Ormiston.
broke into a rather loud laugh. Even if they sail near the
wind, you must stand by the women of your family.

"Come, that will do, I think, Ella," he said. "You won't
beat that triumphant bull in a hurry."

"But, my dear boy, so she is. Even at her present tender
age, she's the living picture of your brother William."

" Oh ! poor William," Roger said hastily.

He turned to Mary Cathcart. The girl had blushed up to
the roots of her crisp, black hair. She did not clearly under-
stand the other woman's speech, nor did she wish to do so.
She was admirably pure-minded. But like all truly pure-
minded persons, she carried a touchstone that made her recoil,,
directly and instinctively, from that which was of doubtful
quality. The twinkle in Dr. Knott's gray eyes, as he sipped
his port, still more the tone of Roger Ormiston's laugh, she
did understand somehow. And this last jarred upon her
cruelly. It opened the flood-gates of doubt which Mary — like
so many another woman in respect of the man she loves — had
striven very valiantly to keep shut. All manner of hints as ta
his indiscretions, all manner of half-told tales as to his debts,
his extravagance, which rumour had conveyed to her unwill-
ing ears, seemed suddenly to gather weight and probability,
viewed in the moral light — so to speak — of that laugh. Great
loves mature and deepen under the action of sorrow and the
necessity to forgive; yet it is a shrewdly bitter moment, when
the heart of either man or woman first admits that the god of

«4 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

its idolatry has, after all, feet of but very common clay. Het
head erect, her eyes moist, Mary turned to Julius March and
asked him of the welfare of a certain labourer's family that had
lately niigrated from Nevvlands to Sandyfield. But Ormiston's
voice broke in upon the inquiries w^ith a determination to
claim her attention.

"Miss Cathcart," he said, '' forgive my interrupting you. I
<:an tell you more about the Spratleys than March can.
They're ail right. lies has taken the man on as carter at the
home-farm, and given the eldest boy a job with the woodmen.
I told him to do what he could for them as you said you were
interested :n them. And now, please, I want you to drink my
small nephew's health."

The girl pushed forward her wine-glass without speaking j
and as he filled it Ormiston added in a lower tone: —

" He, at all events, unlike some of his relations, is guiltless
of foolish words or foolish actions. I don't pretend to share
Ella's superstitions, but some people's good wishes are very
well worth having."

Unwillingly Mary Cathcart raised her eyes. Her head was
still carried a little high and her cheeks were still glowing.
Her god might not be of pure gold throughout — such gods
rarely are unfortunately — yet she was aware she still found
him a very worshipful kind of deity.

*' Very well worth having," he repeated. "And so I should
like that poor little chap to have your good wishes, Miss Cath-
cart. Wish him all manner of nice things, for his mother's
sake as well as his own. There's been a pretty bad run of
luck here lately, and it's time it changed. Wish him better
fortune than his forefathers. I'm not superstitious, as 1 say,
but Richard Calmady's death scared one a little. Five minutes
beforehand it seemed so utterly improbable. And then one
began to wonder if there could be any truth in the old legend.
And that was ugly, you know."

Dr. Knott glanced at the speaker sharply. — " Oh ! that oc-
curred to you, did it ? " he said.

" Bless me ! why, it occurred to everybody," Ormiston
answered impatiently. " Some idiot raked the story up, and it
was canvassed from one end of the county to the other last
autumn till it made me fairly sick."

THE CLOWN 65

" Poor boy ! " cried Mrs. Ormiston, " and what is this
wonderful story that so nauseates him, Dr. Knott ? "

" Vm afraid I can't tell you/' the doctor answered slowly.
A nervous movement on the part of Julius March had at-
tracted his attention. " I have never managed to get hold
of the story as a whole, but I should like to do so uncom-
monly."

Julius pushed back his chair, and groped hurriedly for the
dinner napkin which had slipped to the ground from his knees.
The subject of the conversation agitated him. The untidy^
little chap-books, tied together with the tag of rusty ribbon,
had lain undisturbed in the drawer of his library table ever
since the — to him — very memorable evening, when, kneeling
defore the image of the stricken Mother and the dead Christ,
he had found the man's heart under the priest's cassock and
awakened to newness of life. Much had happened since
then ; and Julius had ranged himself, accepting, open-eyed,
the sorrows and alleviations of the fate he had created for
himself. But to-night he was tired. The mental and emotional
strain of the last few days had been considerable. Moreover,
John Knott's presence always affected him. The two men
stood, indeed, at opposing poles of thought — the one spiritual
and ideal, the other material and realistic. And, though he
struggled against the influence, the doctor's rather brutal com-
mon sense and large knowledge of physical causes, gained a
painful ascendency over his mind at close quarters. Knott, it
must be owned, was slightly merciless to his clerical acquaint-
ances. He loved to bait them, to impale them on the horns
of some moral or theological dilemma. And it was partly
with this purpose of harrying and worrying, that he continued
now : —

"Yes, Mrs. Ormiston, I should like to hear the story just as
much as you would. And — it strikes me, if he pleased, Mr.
March could tell it to us. Suppose you ask him to ! "

Promptly the young lady fell upon Julius, regardless of
Ormiston's hardly concealed displeasure.

" Oh ! you bad man, what are you doing," she cried, "try-
ing to conceal thrilling family legends from the nearest rela-
tives ? Tell us all about it, if you know, as Dr. Knott de-
clares you do. I dote on terrifying stories — don't you, Mary ?
• — that send the cold shivers all down my back. And if they

6l sir RICHARD CALMADY

deal with the history of my nearest and dearest, why, there's
an added charm to them. Now, Mr. March, we're all atten-
tion. Stand and deliver, and make it all just as bad as you
can.

"I am afraid I am not an effective improvisator e^^^ he re-
plied ; " and the subject, if you will pardon my saying so,
seems to me too intimate for mirth. A curse is supposed to
rest on this place. The owners of Brockhurst die young and
by violent means."

" We know that already, and look to you to tell us some-
thing more, Mr. March," Dr. Knott said dryly.

Julius was slightly nettled at the elder man's tone and man-
ner. He answered with an accentuation of his usual refine-
ment of enunciation and suavity of manner.

^' There is a term to the curse, a saviour who, according to
the old prediction, has the power, should he also have the will,
to remove it altogether."

" Oh, really, is that so ! And when does this saviour put
in an appearance ? " the doctor asked again.

"That is not revealed,"

Julius would very gladly have said nothing further. But
Dr. Knott's expression was curiously intent and compelling, as
he sat fingering the stem of his wine-glass. All the ideality
of Julius's nature rose in protest against the half-sneering ra-
tionalism he seemed to read in that expression. Mrs. Ormis-
ton, who had an hereditary racial appreciation of anything
approaching a fight, turned her round eyes first on one speaker
and then on the other provokingly, inciting them to more de-
clared hostilities, while she bit her lips in her effort to avoid
spoiling sport by untimely laughter or speech.

" But unhappily," Julius proceeded, yielding under protest to
these opposing forces, "the saviour comes in so questionable
a shape, that I fear, whenever the appointed time may be,
his appearance v/ill only be welcomed by the discerning feWp"

"That's a pity," Dr. Knott said. He paused a minute,
passed his hand across his mouth. " Still, if we are to believe
the Bible, and other so-called, sacred histories, it's been the
way of saviours from the beginning to try the faith of ordinary
mortals by presenting themselves under rather queer disguises.'*
He paused again, drawing in his wide lips, moistening them
with his tongue. " But since you evidently know all about

THE CLOWN 67

it, Mr. March, may I make bold to inquire in what special
form of fancy dress the saviour in question is reported as likely
to present himself? "

" He comes as a child of the house," Julius answered, with
dignity. "A child who in person — if I understand the word-
ing of the prophecy aright — is half angel, half monster."

John Knott opened his mouth as though to give passage to
some very forcible exclamation. Thought better of it and
brought his jaws together with a kind of grind. His heavy
figure seemed to hunch itself up as in the recoil from a
blow.

" Curious," he said quietly. Yet Julius, looking at him,
could have fancied that his weather-beaten face went a trifle
pale.

But Mrs. Ormiston, in the interests of a possible fight,
had contained herself just as long as was possible. Now
she clapped her hands, and broke into a little scream of
laughter.

" That's just the most magnificently romantic thing I ever
heard," she cried. "Come now, this requires further investi-
gation. What's our baby like. Dr. Knott ? I've seen noth-
ing but an indistinguishable mass of shawls and flannels.
Have we, by chance, got an angelic monstrosity up-stairs with-
out being aware of it ? "

" Charlotte ! " Roger Ormiston called out sternly. The
young man looked positively dangerous. "This conversation
has gone quite far enough. I agree with March, it may all
be stuffs and nonsense, not worth a second thought, still it isn't
a thing to joke about."

" Very well, dear boy, be soothed then," she returned,
making a little grimace and putting her head on one side
coquettishly. " I'll be as solemn as nine owls. But you
must excuse a momentary excitement. It's all news to me,
you know. I'd no notion Katherine had married into such a
remarkable family. I'm bound to learn a little more. Do
you believe it's possible at all. Dr. Knott, now tell me ? "

" The fulfilment of prophecy is rather a wide and burning
question to embark on," he said. " With Captain Ormiston's
leave, I think we'd better go back to the point we started
from and drink the little gentleman's health. I have my
patient to see again, and it is getting rather late."

68 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

The lady addressed, laughed, held up her glass, and stared
round the table with a fine air of bravado, looking remarkably
pretty.

" Fire away, Roger, dear fellow," she said. " We're
loaded, and ready."

Thus admonished, Ormiston raised his glass too. But his
temper was not of the sweetest, just then ; he spoke forcedly.

"Here's to the boy," he said; '^good luck, and good
health, and," he added hastily, " please God he'll be a comfort
to his mother."

" Amen," Julius said softly.

Dr. Knott contemplated the contents of his glass, for a
moment, whether critically or absently it would have been
difficult to decide. But all the harshness had gone out of his
face, and his loose lips worked into a smile pathetic in
quality.

"To the baby. — And I venture to add a clause to your in-
vocation of that heartless jade. Dame Fortune. May he
never lack good courage and good friends. He will need
both."

Julius March set down his wine untasted. He had re-
ceived a very disagreeable impression.

" Come, come, it appears to me, w^e are paying these
honours in a most lugubrious spirit," Mrs. Ormiston broke in.
" I wish the baby a long life and a merry one, in defiance of
all prophecies and traditions belonging to his paternal ances-
try. Go on, Mr. March, you're shamefully neglecting your
duty. No heel taps."

She threw back her head showing the whole of her white
throat, drained her glass and then flung it over her shoulder.
It fell on the black, polished boards, beyond the edge of the
carpet, shivered into a hundred pieces, that lay glittering, like
scattered diamonds in the lamplight. For the day had died
altogether. Fleets of dark, straggling cloud chased each other
across spaces of pallid sky, against the earthward edge of
which dusky tree-tops strained and writhed in the force of the
tearing gale.

Ella Ormiston rose laughing from her place at table.

*' That's the correct form," she said, " it ensures the fulfil-
ment of the wish. You ought all to have cast away your
glasses regardless of expense. Come, Mary, wc will remove

THE CLOWN 69

ourselves. Mind and bid me good-bye before you go. Dr.
Knott, and report on Lady Calmady. It's probably the last
time you'll have the felicity of seeing me. I'm ofF at cock-
crow^ to-morrow morning."

CHAPTER VIII

ENTER A CHILD OF PROMISE

A FTER closing the door behind the tv^o ladies, Ormiston
"^^ paused by the near window and gazed out into the
night. The dinner had been, in his opinion, far from a suc-
cess. He feared his relation to Mary Cathcart had retro-
graded rather than progressed. He wished his sister-in-law
would be more correct in speech and behaviour. Then he
held the conversation had been in bad taste. The doctor
should have abstained from pressing Julius with questions.
He assured himself, again, that the story was not worth a mo-
ment's serious consideration ; yet he resented its discussion.
Such discussion seemed to him to tread hard on the heels of
impertinence to his sister, to her husband's memory, and to
this boy, born to so excellent a position and so great wealth.
And the worst of it was, that like a fool, he had started the
subject himself!

" The wind's rising," he remarked at last. " You'll have
a rough drive home, Knott."

" It won't be the first one. And my beauty's of the kind
which takes a lot of spoiling."

The answer did not please the young man. He sauntered
across the room and dropped into his chair, with a slightly in-
solent demeanour.

"All the same, don't let me detain you," he said, " if you
prefer seeing Lady Calmady at once and getting off."

"You don't detain me," Dr. Knott answered. "I'm
afraid that it's just the other way about, and that I must de-
tain you. Captain Ormiston, and that on rather unpleasant
business."

Julius March had risen to his feet. " You — you have no

70 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

fresh cause for anxiety about L.idy Calmady ? " he said hur-
riedly.

The doctor glanced up at the tall, spare, black figure and
dark, sensitive face with a half-sneering, half-pitying smile.

^^ Oh no, no ! *' he replied; ''Lady Calmady 's going on
, splendidly. And it is to guard, just as far as we can, against
'cause for anxiety later, that I want to speak to Captain Or-
miston now. We've got to be prepared for certain contin-
gencies. Don't you go, Mr. March. You may as well hear
what I've to say. It will interest you particularly, I fancy,
after one or two things you have told us to-night ! "

"Sit down, Julius, please." — Ormiston would have liked to
maintain that same insolence of demeanour, but it gave before
an apprehension of serious issues. He looked hard at the
doctor, cudgeling his brains as to what the latter't enigmatic
speech might mean — divined, put the idea avv^ay as inadmis-
sible, returned to it, then said angrily : — " There's nothing
wrong with the child, of course ? "

Dr. Knott turned his chair sideways to the table and shaded
his face with his thick, square hand.

'' Well, that depends on what you call wrong," he slowly
replied.

" It's not ill ? " Ormiston said.

" The baby's as well as you or I — better, in fact, than I
am, for I am confoundedly touched up with gout. Bear that
in mind. Captain Ormiston — that the child is well, I mean,
not that I am gouty. I want you to definitely remember
that, you and Mr. March."

"Well, then, what on earth is the matter?" Ormiston
asked sharply. "You don't mean to imply it is injured in
any way, deformed ? "

Dr. Knott let his hand drop on the table. He nodded his
head. Ormiston perceived, and it moved him strangely, that
the doctor's eyes were wet.

"Not deformed," he answered. "Technically you can
hardly call it that, but maimed."

" Badly ? "

" Well, that's a matter of opinion. You or I should think
5t bad enough, I fancy, if we found ourselves in the same
boat." He settled himself back in his chair. — "You had bet-
ter understand it quite clearly," he continued, " at least as

THE CLOWN 71

clearly as I can put it to you. There comes a point where I
cannot explain the facts but only state them. You have heard
of spontaneous amputation ? "

Across Ormiston's mind came the remembrance of a litter
of puppies he had seen in the sanctum of the veterinary sur-
geon of his regiment. A lump rose in his throat.

" Yes, go on/' he said.

" It is a thing that does not happen once in most men's
experience. I have only seen one case before in all my prac-
tice and that was nothing very serious. This is an extra-
ordinary example. I need not remind you of Sir Richard
Calmady's accident and the subsequent operation ? "

" Of course not — go on," Ormiston repeated.

^' In both cases the leg is gone from here," the doctor con-
tinued, laying the edge of his palm across the thigh immedi-
ately above the knee. " The foot is there — that is the amaz-
ing part of it — and, as far as I can see, is well formed and of
the normal size ; but so embedded in the stump that I cannot
discover whether the ankle-joint and bones of the lower leg
exist in a contracted form or not."

Ormiston poured himself out a glass of port. His hand
shook so that the lip of the decanter chattered against the lip
of the glass. He gulped down the wine and, getting up,
walked the length of the room and back again.

" God in heaven," he murmured, " how horrible ! Poor
Kitty, how utterly horrible ! — Poor Kitty."

For the baby, in his own fine completeness, he had as yet no
feeling but one of repulsion.

" Can nothing be done, Knott ? " he asked at last.

" Obviously nothing."

" And it will live ? "

" Oh ! bless you, yes ! It'll live fast enough if I know a
healthy infant when I see one. And I ought to know 'em by
now. I've brought them into the world by dozens for my
sins."

'' Will it be able to walk ? "

" Umph — well — shuffle," the doctor answered, smiling
savagely to keep back the tears.

The young man leaned his elbows on the table, and rested
his head on his hands. All this shocked him inexpressibly —
shocked him almost to the point of physical illness. Strong

72 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

as he was he could have fainted, just then, had he yielded by
ever so little. And this u^as the boy whom they had so longed
for then ! The child on whom they had set such fond hopes,
who was to be the pride of his young mother, and restore the
so rudely shaken balance of her life ! This was the boy who
should go to Eton, and into some crack regiment, who should
ride straight, who was heir to great possessions !

"The saviour has come, you see, Mr. March, in as thor-
ough-paced a disguise as ever saviour did yet," John Knott
said cynically.

" He had better never have come at all ! " Ormiston put in
fiercely, from behind his hands.

Yes — very likely — I believe I agree," the doctor answered.

Only it remains that he has come, is feeding, growing, stretch-
ing, and bellowing too, like a young bull-calf, when anything
doesn't suit him. He is here, very much here, I tell you.
And so we have just got to consider how to make the best of
him, both for his own sake and for Lady Calmady's. And you
must understand he is a splendid, little anim.al, clean skinned
and strong, as you would expect, being the child of two such
fine young people. He is beautiful, — I am old-fashioned
enough, perhaps scientific enough, to put a good deal of faith
in that notion, — beautiful as a child only can be who is born
of the passion of true lovers."

He paused, looking somewhat mockingly at Julius.

'^ Yes, love is an incalculably great, natural force," he con-
tinued. " It comes uncommonly near working miracles at
times, unconscious and rather deplorable miracles. In this
case it has worked strangely against itself — at once for
irreparable injury and for perfection. For the child is perfect,
is superb, but for the one thing."

^^ Does my sister know ? " Ormiston asked hoarsely.

*' Not yet ', and, as long as we can keep the truth from her,
she had better not know. We must get her a little stronger, if
we can, first. That woman, Mrs. Denny, is worth her weight
in gold, and her weight's not inconsiderable. She has her
wits about her, and has contrived to meet all difficulties so
far."

Ormiston sat in the same dejected attitude.

^^ But my sister is bound to know before long."

** Of course. When she is a bit better^ she'll want to have

THE CLOWN 73

the baby to pluy with, d.'-ess and undress it and see what the
queer little being is made of. It's a way young mothers have,
and a very pretty way too. If we keep the child from her she
will grow suspicious, and take means to find out for herself,
and that won't do. It must not be. I won't be responsible
for the consequences. So as soon as she asks a definite
question, she must have a definite answer."

The young man looked up quickly.

"And who is to give the answer? " he said.

"Well, it rests chiefly with you to decide that. Clearly she
ought not to hear this thing from a servant. It Is too serious.
It needs to be well told — the whole kept at a high level, if you
understand me. Give Lady Calmady a great part and she will
play it nobly. Let this come upon her from a mean, wet-
nurse, hospital-ward sort of level, and it may break her. What
we have to do is to keep up her pluck. Remember we are
only at the beginning of this business yet. In all probability
there are many years ahead. Therefore this announcement
must come to Lady Calmady from an educated person, from
an equal, from somebody who can see all round it. Mrs.
Ormiston tells me she leaves here to-morrow morning ? "

" Mrs. Ormiston is out of the question anyhow," Roger
exclaimed rather bitterly.

Here Julius March, who had so far been silent, spohe ; and
in speaking showed what manner of spirit he was of. The
doctor agitated him, treated him, moreover, with scant courtesy.
But Julius put this aside. He could afford to forget himself in
liis desire for any possible mitigation of the blow which must
fall on Katherine Calmady. And, listening to his talk, he had,
in the last quarter of an hour, gained conviction not only of
this man's ability, but of his humanity, of his possession of the
peculiar gentleness which so often, mercifully, goes along with
unusual strength. As the coarse-looking hand couid soothe,
touching delicately, so the hard intellect and rough tongue
could, he believed, modulate themselves to very consoling and
inspiring tenderness of thought and speech.

"We have you. Dr. Knott," he said. " No one, I think,
could better break this terrible sorrow to Lady Calmady, than
yourself."

"Thank you — you are generous, Mr. March," the other
answered cordially ; adding to himself, — " Got to revise my

74 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

opinion of the black coat. Didn't quite deserve thai after the
way you've badgered him, eh, John Knott ? "

He shrugged his big shoulders a little shamefacedly.

" Of course, I'd do my best," he continued. " But you see
ten to one I shan't be here at the moment. As it is I have
neglected lingering sicknesses and sudden deaths, hysterical
girls, croupy children, broken legs, and all the other pretty
little amusements of a rather large practice, waiting for me.
Suppose I happen to be twenty miles away on the far side of
Westchurch, or seeing after some of Lady Fallowfeild's
numerous progeny engaged In teething or measles ? Lady
Calmady might be kept waiting, and we cannot afford to have
her kept waiting in this crisis."

"I wish to God my aunt, Mrs. St. Quentin, was here!"
Ormiston exclaimed. " But she is not, and won't be, alas."

" Well, then, who remains ? "

As the doctor spoke he pressed his fingers against the edge
of the table, leaned forward, and looked keenly at Ormiston.
He was extremely ugly just then, ugly as the weather-worn
gargoyle on some mediaeval church tower j but his eyes were
curiously compelling.

" Good heavens ! you don't mean that I've got to tell her ! "
Ormiston cried.

He rose hurriedly, thrust his hands into his pockets, and
walked a little unsteadily across to the window, crunching the
shining pieces of Mrs. Ormiston's sacrificial wine-glass under
foot. Outside the night was very wild. In the colourless sky
stars reeled among the fleets of racing cloud. The wind hissed
up the grass slopes and shouted among the great trees crowning
the ridge of the hill. The prospect was not calculated to
encourage. Ormiston turned his back on it. But hardly more
encouraging was the sombre, gray-blue-walled room. The
vision of all that often returned to him afterwards in very dif-
ferent scenes — the tall lamps, the two men, so strangely dis-
similar in appearance and temperament, sitting on either side
the dinner-table with Its fine linen and silver, wines and fruits,
waiting silently for him to speak.

*' I can't tell her," he said, " I can't. Damn It all, I tell you,
Knott, I daren't. Think what it will be to her ! Think of
being told that about your own child ! " Ormiston lost control
of himself. He spoke violently. " I'm so awfully fond of

THE CLOWN 75

her and proud of her,*' he went on. "She's behaved so
splendidly ever since Richard's death, laid hold of all the busi-
ness, never spared herself, been so able and so just. And now
the baby coming, and being a boy, seemed to be a sort of let
up, a reward to her for all her goodness. To tell her this
horrible thing will be like doing her some hideous wrong. If
her heart has to be broken, in common charity don't ask me to
break it."

There was a pause. He came back to the table and stood
behind Julius March's chair.

'^ It's asking me to be hangman to my own sister," he said.

" Yes, I know it is a confoundedly nasty piece of work.
And it's rough on you, very rough. Only, you see, this
hanging has to be put through — there's the nuisance. And
it is just a question whether your hand won't be the lightest
after all."

Again silence obtained, but for the rush and sob of the gale
against the great house.

" What do you say, Julius ? " Ormiston demanded at last.

*' I suppose our only thought is for Katherine — for Lady
Calmady ? " he said, " And in that case I agree with Dr.
Knott."

Roger took another turn to the window, stood there awhile
struggling with his natural desire to escape from so painful an
embassy.

*-' Very well, if you are not here, Knott, I undertake to tell
her," he said at last. "Please God, she mayn't turn against
me altogether for bringing her such news. I'll be on hand for
the next few days, and — you must explain to Denny that I am
to be sent for whenever I am wanted. That's all, — I suppose
we may as well go now, mayn't we ? "

Julius knelt at the faldstool, without the altar rails of the
chapel, till the light showed faintly through the grisaille of the
stained-glass windows and outlined the spires and carveii
canopies of the stalls. At first his prayers were definite,
petitions for mercy and grace to be outpoured on the fair, young
mother and her, seemingly, so cruelly afflicted child ; on him-
self, too, that he might be permitted to stay here, and serve
her through the difficult future. If she had been sacred be-
fore, Katherine was rendered doubly sacred to him now. He
bowed himself, in reverential awe, before the thought of her

76 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

martyrdom. How would her proud and naturally joyous
spirit bear the bitter pains of it ? Would it make, eventually^
for evil or for good ? And then — the ascetic within him as-
serting itself, notwithstanding the widening of outlook pro-
duced by the awakening of his heart — he was overtaken by a
great horror of that v/hich we call matter; by a revolt against
the body, and those torments and shames, mental, moral, and
physical, which the body brings along with it. Surely the
dualists were right ? It was unregenerate, a thing, if made by^
God, yet wholly fallen away from Him and given over to evil,
this fleshly envelope wherein the human soul is seated, and
which, even in the womb, may be infected by disease or
rendered hideous by mutilation ? Then, as the languor of his
long vigil overcame him, he passed into an ecstatic contem-
plation of the state of that same soul after death, clothed with
a garment of incorruptible and enduring beauty, dwelling in
clear, luminous spaces, worshipping among the ranks of the
redeemed, beholding its Lord God face to face.

John Knott, meanwhile, after driving home beneath the
reeling stars, through the roar of the forest and shriek of the
wind across the open moors, found an urgent summons await-
ing him. He spent the remainder of that night, not in dreams
of paradise and of spirits redeemed from the thraldom of the
flesh, but in increasing the population of this astonishing
planet, by assisting to deliver a scrofulous, half-witted shriek-
ing servant-girl of twins — illegitimate — in the fusty atmos-
phere of a cottage garret, right up under the rat-eaten thatch*

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH KATHERINE CALMADY LOOKS ON HER SON

A/Tore than a week elapsed before Ormiston was called
upon to redeem his promise. For Lady Calmady's
convalescence was slow. An apathy held her, which was
tranquillising rather than tedious. She was glad to lie still and
rest. She found it very soothing to be shut away from the
many obligations of active life for a while ; to watch the sun-
light, on fair days, shift from east by south to west, across the

THE CLOWN

77

warm fragrant room ; to see the changing clouds in the deli-
cate spring sky, and the slow-dying crimson and violet of the
sunset ; to hear the sudden hurry of f;dling rain, the subdued
voices of the women in the adjoining nursery, and, some-
times, the lusty protestations of her baby when — as John
Knott had put it — "things didn't suit him." She felt a little
jealous of the comely, young wet-nurse, a little desirous to be
more intimately acquainted with this small, new Richard Cal-
mady, on whom all her hopes for the future were set. But
immediately she was very submissive to the restrictions laid
by Denny and the doctor upon her intercourse with the child.
She only stood on the threshold of motherhood as yet.
While the inevitable exhaustion, following on the excitement
of her spring and summer of joy, her autumn of bitter
sorrow, and her winter of hard work, asserted itself now that
she had time and opportunity for rest.

The hangings and coverlet of the great, ebony, half-tester
bed were lined with rose silk, and worked, with many coloured
worsteds on a white ground, in the elaborate Persian pattern
so popular among industrious ladies of leisure in the reign of
good Queen Anne. It may be questioned whether the pa^-a-
ble, wrought out with such patience of innumerable stitches,
was closely comprehensible or sympathetic to the said ladies ;
since a particularly wide interval, both of philosophy and
practice, would seem to divide the temper of the early eight-
eenth century from that of the mystic East. Still the parable
was there, plain to whoso could read it ; and not perhaps, rather
pathetically, without its modern application.

The Powers of Evil, in the form of a Leopard, pursue the
soul of man, symbolised by a Hart, through the Forest of
This Life. In the midst of that same forest stands an airy,
domed pavilion, in which — if so be it have strength and fleet-
ness to reach it — the panting, hunted creature may, for a time,
find security and repose. Above this resting-place the trees
of the forest interlace their spreading branches, loaded with
amazing leaves and fruit *, while companies of rainbow-hued
birds, standing very upright upon nothing in particular, enter-
tain themselves by holding singularly indigestible looking
cherries and mulberries in their yellow beaks.

And so, Katherine, resting in dreamy quiet within the
shade of the embroidered curtains, was even as the Hart pas*

78 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

turing in temporary security before the quaint pavilion. The
mark of her bereavement was upon her sensibly still — would
be so until the end. Often in the night, when Denny had at
last left her, she would wake suddenly and stretch her arms
out across the vacant space of the wide bed, calling softly to
the beloved one who could give no answer; and then recol-
lecting, would sob herself again to sleep. Often too, as
Ormiston's step sounded through the Chapel-Room when he
came to pay her those short, frequent visits, bringing the clean
freshness of the outer air along with him, Katherine would
look up in a wondering gladness, cheating herself for an
instant with unreasoning delight — look up, only to know her
sorrow, and feel the knife turn in the wound. Nevertheless
these days made, in the main, for peace and healing. On
more than one occasion she petitioned that Julius March
should come and read to her, choosing, as the book he should
read from, Spencer's Faerie ^eene. He obeyed, in manner
calm, in spirit deeply moved. Katherine spoke little. But
her charm was great, as she lay, her eyes changeful in colour
as a moorland stream, listening to those intricate stanzas, in
which the large hope, the pride of honourable deeds, the
virtue, the patriotism, the masculine fearlessness, the ideality,
the fantastic imagination, of the English Renaissance so nobly
finds voice. They comforted her mind, set by instinct and
training to welcome all splendid adventures of romance, of
nature, and of faith. They carried her back, in dear remem-
brance, to the perplexing and enchanting discoveries which
Richard Calmady's visit to Ormiston Castle — the many-
towered, gray house looking eastward across the unquiet sea —
had brought to her. And specially did they recall to her that
first evening — even yet she grew hot as she thought of it —
when the supposed gentleman-jockey, whom she had purposed
treating with gay and reducing indifference, proved not only
fine scholar and fine gentleman, but absolute and indisputable
master of her heart.

Dr. Knott came to see her, too, almost daily — rough, ten-
der-hearted, humorous, dependable, never losing sight, in his
intercourse with her, of the matter in hand, of the thing
which immediately is.

Thus did these three men, each according to his nature and
capacity, strive to guard the poor Hart, pasturing before the

THE CLOWN 79

quaint pavilion, set — for its passing refreshment — in the midst
of the Forest of This Life, and to keep, just so long as was
possible, the pursuing Leopard at bay. Nevertheless the Leo-
pard gained, despite of their faithful guardianship — which was
inevitable, the case standing as it did.

For one bright afternoon, about three o'clock, Mrs. Denny
arrived in the gun-room, where Ormiston sat smoking, while
talking over with Julius the turf-cutting claims of certain
squatters on Spendle Flats — arrived, not to summon the latter
to further readings of the great Elizabethan poet, but to say to
the former : —

" Will you please come at once, sir ? Her ladyship is sit-
ting up. She is a little difficult about the baby — only, you
know, sir, if I can say it with all respect, in her pretty, teas-
ing way. But I am afraid she must be told."

And Roger rose and went — sick at heart. He would
rather have faced an enemy's battery, vomiting out shot and
«hell, than gone up the broad, stately staircase, and by the
silent, sunny passageways, to that fragrant, white-paneled
room.

On the stands and tables were bowls full of clear-coloured
spring flowers — early primrose, jonquil, and narcissus. A
wood-fire burned upon the blue-and-white tiled hearth. And
on the sofa, drawn up at right angles to it, Katherine sat,
wrapped in a gray, silk dressing-gown bordered with soft^
white fur. She flushed slightly as her brother came in, and
spoke to him with an air of playful apology.

" I really don't know why you should have been dragged up
here, just now, dear old man," she said. " It is some fancy
of Denny's. I'm afraid in the excess of her devotion she
makes me rather a nuisance to you. And now, not contented
with fussing about me, she has taken to being absurdly mys-
terious about the baby "

She stopped abruptly. Something in the young man's ex-
pression and bearing impressed her, causing her to stretch out
her hands to him in swift fear and entreaty.

" Oh, Roger ! " she cried, " Roger — what is it ? "

And he told her, repeating, with but a few omissions, the
statement made to him by the doctor ten days ago. He dared
not look at her while he spoke, lest seeing her should unnerve
iiim altogether.

8o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Katherine was very still. She made no outcry. Yet her
very stillness seemed to him the more ominous, and the horror
of the recital grew upon him. His voice sounded to him un-
naturally loud and harsh in the surrounding quiet. Once her
silken draperies gave a shuddering rustle — that was all.

At last it was over. At last he dared to look at her. The
colour and youthful roundness had gone out of her face. It
was gray as her dress, fixed and rigid as a marble mask.
Ormiston was overcome with a consuming pity for her and
with a violence of self-hatred. Hangman, and to his own
sister — in truth, it seemed to him to have come to that ! He
knelt down in front of her, laying hold of both her knees.

" Kitty, can you ever forgive me for telling you this ? " he
asked hoarsely.

Even in this extremity Katherine's inherent sweetness as-
serted itself. She would have smiled, but her frozen lips re-
fused. Her eyelids quivered a little and closed.

"I have nothing to forgive you, dear," she said. "Indeed,
it is good of you to tell me, since — since so it is."

She put her hands upon his shoulders, gripping them fast,
and bowed her head. The little flames crackled, dancing
among the pine logs and the silk of her dress rustled as her
bosom rose and fell.

" It won't make you ill again ? " Roger asked anxiously*

Katherine shook her head.

" Oh, no ! " she said, " I have no more time for illnessr^
This is a thing to cure, as a cautery cures — to burn away all
idleness and self-indulgent, sick room fancies. See, I am.
strong, I am well."

She stood up, her hands slipping down from Ormiston'^s
shoulders and steadying themselves on his hands as he too
rose. Her face was still ashen, but purpose and decision had
come into her eyes.

" Do this for me," she said, almost imperiously. " Go to
Denny, tell her to bring me the baby. She is to leave him
with me. And tell her, as she loves both him and me, — as:
she values her place here at Brockhurst, — she is not to speak."

As he looked at her Ormiston turned cold. She was terri-
ble just then.

*^ Katherine," he said quickly, " what on earth are you go-
ing to do ? "

THE CLOWN 8x

" No harm to my baby in any case — you need not be
alarmed. I am quite to be trusted. Only I cannot be rea-
soned with or opposed, still less condoled with or comforted,
yet. I want my baby, and I must have him, here, alone, the
doors shut — locked if I please." Her hps gave, the corners
of her mouth dropped. And watching her Ormiston swore a
little under his breath. ''We have something to say to each
other, the baby and I," she went on, " which no one else may
hear. So do what I ask you, Roger. And come back — I
may want you — in about an hour, if I do not send for you
before."

Alone with her child, Lady Calmady moved slowly across
and bolted both the nursery and the chapel-room doors.
Then she drew a low stool up in front of the fire and sat
down, laying the infant upon her lap. It was a delicious,
dimpled creature, with a quantity of silky golden-brown hair,
that curled in a tiny crest along the top of its head. It was
but half awake yet, the rounded cheeks pink with the comfort
of food and slumber. And as the beautiful, young mother,
bending that set, ashen face of hers above it, laid the child
upon her knees, it stretched, clenching soft baby fists and
rubbing them into its blue eyes.

Katherine unwrapped the shawls, and took ofF one small
garment after another — delicate gossamer-like things of fine
flannel, lawn and lace, such as women's fingers linger over in
the making with tender joy. Once her resolution failed her.
She wrapped the half-dressed child in its white shawls again,
rose from her place and walked over to the sunny window,
ca^-rying it in the hollow of her arm — it staring up, meanwhile,
. with the strange wonder of baby eyes, and cooing, as though
holding communication with gracious presences haunting the
mculded ceiling above. Katherine gazed at it for a few
seconds. But the little creature's serene content, its absolute
unconsciousness of its own evil fortune, pained her too
gnratly. She went back, sat down on the stool again, and
completed the task she had set herself.

Then, the baby lying stark naked on her lap, she studied the
fai.', little face, the penciled eyebrows and fringed eyelids, —
dark like her own, — the firm, rounded arms, the rosy-palmed
hands, their dainty fingers and finger-nails, the well-propor-
tioned and well-nourished body, without smallest mark or

82 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

blemish upon it, sound, wholesome, and complete. All these
she studied long and carefully, while the dancing glow of the
firelight played over the child's delicate flesh, and it extended
its little arms in the pleasant warmth, holding them up, as in
act of adoration, towards those gracious unseen presences,
still, apparently, hovering above the flood of instreaming sun-
shine against the ceiling overhead. Lastly she turned her
eyes, with almost dreadful courage, upon the mutilated, mal-
formed limbs, upon the feet — set right up where the knee
should have been, thus dwarfing the child by a fourth of his
height. She observed them, handled, felt them. And as she
did so, her mother-love, which, until now, had been but a part
and consequence — since the child was his gift, the crown and
outcome of their passion, his and hers — of the great love she
bore her husband, became distinct from that, an emotion by
itself, heretofore unimagined, pervasive of all her being. It
had none of the sweet self-abandon, the dear enchantments,
the harmonising sense of safety and repose which that earlier
passion had. This was altogether different in character, and
made quite other demands on mind and heart. For it was
fierce, watchful, anxious, violent with primitive instinct; the
roots of it planted far back in that unthinkable remoteness of
time, when the fertile womb of the great earth mother began
to bring forth the first blind, simple forms of those countless
generations of living creatures which, slowly differentiating
themselves, slowly developing, have peopled this planet from
that immeasurable past to the present hour. Love between
man and woman must be forever young, even as Eros, Cupid,
Krishna, are forever youthful gods. But mother-love is of
necessity mature, majestic, ancient from the stamp of primal
experience which is upon it.

And so, at this juncture, realising that which her mother-
hood meant, her immaturity, her girlhood fell away from
Katherine Calmady. Her life and the purpose of it moved
forward on another plane.

She bent down and solemnly kissed the unlovely, shortened
limbs, not once or twice, but many times, yielding herself up
with an almost voluptuous intensity to her own emotion. She
clasped her hands about her knees, so that the child might be
enclosed, overshadowed, embraced on all sides by the living
defenses of its mother's love. Alone there, with no wit-

THE CLOWN 83

nesses, she brooded over it, crooned to it, caressed it with an
insatiable hunger of tenderness.

" And yet, my poor pretty, if we had both died, you and I,
ten days ago,'' she murmured, " how far better. For what
will you say to me when you grow older — to me who have
brought you, without any asking or will of yours, into a world
in which you must always be at so cruel a disadvantage ?
How will you bear it all when you come to face it for your-
self, and I can no longer shield you and hide you away as I
can do now ? Will you have fortitude to endure, or will you
become sour, vindictive, misanthropic, envious ? Will you
curse the hour of your birth ? "

Katherine bowed her proud head still lower.

" Ah ! don't do that, my darling," she prayed in piteous en-
treaty, " don't do that. For I will share all your trouble, do
share it even now, beforehand, foreseeing it, while you still lie
smiling unknowing of your own distress. I shall live through
it many times, by day and night, while you live through it only
once. And so you must be forbearing towards me, my dear
one, when you come "

She broke ofF abruptly, her hands fell at her sides, and she
sat rigidly upright, her lips parted, staring blankly at the danc-
ing flames.

In repeating Dr. Knott's statement Ormiston had pur-
posely abstained from all mention of Richard Calmady's acci-
dent and its tragic sequel. He could not bring himself to
speak to Katherine of that. Until now, dominated by the
rush of her emotion, she had only recognised the bare terrible
fact of the baby's crippled condition, without attempting to
account for it. But, now, suddenly the truth presented itself
to her. She understood that she was herself, in a sense, ac-
countable— that the greatness of her love for the father had
maimed the child.

As she realised the profound irony of the position, a black-
ness of misery fell upon Katherine. And then, since she was
of a strong, undaunted spirit, an immense anger possessed
her, a revolt against nature which could work such wanton
injury, and against God, who, being all-powerful, could sit
by and permit it so to work. All the foundations of faith
and reverence were, for the tmie being, shaken to the very
base.

84 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

She gathered the naked baby up against her bosom, rocking
herself to and fro in a paroxysm of rebellious grief.

" God is unjust ! " she cried aloud. " He takes pleasure io
fooling us. God is unjust ! '*

CHAPTER X

THE BIRDS OF THE AIR TAKE THEIR BREAKFAST

/^RMISTON'S first sensation on reentering his sister's
^^^ room was one of very sensible relief. For Katherine
leaned back against the pink brocade cushions in the corner of
the sofa, with the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms. Her
colour was more normal too, her features less mask-like and
set. The cloud which had shadowed the young man's mind
for nearly a fortnight lifted. She knew; therefore, he argued,
the worst must be over. It was an immense gain that this
thing was fairly said. Yet, as he came nearer and sat down
on the sofa beside her, Ormiston, who was a keen observer,
both of horses and women, became aware of a subtle change
in Katherine. He was struck — he had never noticed it be-
fore^ hv her likeness to her — and his — father, whose stern,
high *j.red, clean-shaven face and rather inaccessible bearing
anc^ t-ianner impressed his son, even to this day, as somewhat
al'-^r^THng. People were careful not to trifle with old Mr.
Orrrv^siton. His will was absolute in his own house, with his
tenants, and in the great iron-works — almost a town in itself
— vhich fed his fine fortune. While from his equals — even
f^'om his fellow-members of that not over-reverent or easily
impr ssible body, the House of Commons — he required and
rece'./cd a degree of deference such as men yield only to an
uni' dually powerful character. And there was now just such
underlying energy in Katherine's expression. Her eyes were
dark, as a clear midnight sky is dark, her beautiful lips com-
premised, but with concentration of purpose, not with weakness
of sorrow. The force of her motherhood had awakened in
K -therine a latent, titanic element. Like " Prometheus
Boiind/' chained to the rock, torn, her spirit remained un-

THE CLOWN 85

quelled. For good or evil — as the event should prove — she
defied the gods.

And something of all this — though he would have worded
it very differently in the vernacular of passing fashion — Ormis-
ton perceived. She was unbroken by that which had occurred,
and for this he was thankful. But she was another woman to
her who had greeted him in pretty apology an hour ago. Yet,
even recognising this, her first words produced in him a shock
c/ surprise.

*' Is that horse, the Clown, still at the stables ? " she asked.

Ormiston thrust his hands into his pockets ; and sitting on
the edge of the sofa with his knees apart, stared down at the
carpet. The mention of the Clown always cut him, and
raised in him a remorseful anger. Yes she was like his father,
going straight to the point, he thought. And, in this case, the
poi»t was acutely painful to him personally. Ormiston's
I moral courage had been severely taxed, and he had a fair share
of the selfishness common to man. It was all very well, but
he wished to goodness she had chosen some other subject than
this. Yet he must answer.

*' Yes," he said; "Willy Taylor has been leading the gal-
lops for the two-year-olds on him for the last month." — He
paused. " What about the Clown ? "

" Only that I should be glad if you would tell Chifney he
must find some other horse to lead the gallops."

Ormiston turned his head.

" I see — you wish the horse sold," he said, over his shoulder.

Katherine looked down at the sleeping baby, its round head,
crowned by that delicious crest of silky hair, cuddled in against
her breast. Then she looked in her brother's eyes full and
steadily.

" No," she answered. " I don't want it sold, I want it shot,
by you, here, to-night."

" By Jove ! " the young man exclaimed, rising hastily and
standing in front of her.

Katherine gazed up at him, and held the child a little closer
to her breast.

" I have been alone with my baby. Don't you suppose I
see how it has come about ? " she asked.

" Oh, damn it all ! " Ormiston cried. '^I prayed, a*- least,
you might be spared thinking of that."

86 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

He flung himself down on the sofa again — while the baby
clenching its tiny fist, stretched and murmured in its sleep —
and bowed himself together, resting his elbows on his knees
and his chin in his hands.

" Pm at the bottom of it. It's all my ^ault," he said. " I
am haunted by the thought of that day and night, for if ever
one man loved another I loved Richard. And yet if I hadn't
been so cursedly keen about the horse all this might never have
happened. Oh ! if you only knew how often I've wished
myself dead since that ghastly morning. You must hate me,
Kitty. You've cause enough. Yet how the deuce could I
foresee what would come about ? "

For the moment Katherine's expression softened. She laid
her left hand very gently on his bowed head.

" I could never hate you, dear old man," she said, " You
are innocent of Richard's death. But this last thing is differ-
ent." Her voice became fuller and deeper in tone. '^And
whether I am equally innocent of his child's disfigurement,
God only knows — if there is a God, which perhaps, just now,
I had better doubt, lest I should blaspheme too loudly, hoping
my bitter words might reach His hearing."

Yet further disturbed in the completeness of its comfort, as
it would seem, by the seriousness of her voice, the baby's
mouth puckered. It began to fret. Katherine rose and
stood rocking it, soothing it — a queenly young figure in her
clinging gray and white draperies, which the instreaming
sunshine touched, as she moved, to a delicate warmth of
colour.

" Hush, my pretty lamb," she crooned — and then softly yet
fiercely to Ormiston, " You understand, I wish it. The Clown
is to be shot."

" Very well," he answered.

" Sleep — what troubles you, my precious," she went on.
"I want it done, now, at once. — Hush, baby, hush. — The sun
shall not go down upon my wrath, because my wrath shall be
somewhat appeased before the sunset."

Katherine swayed with a rhythmic motion, holding the baby
a little away from her in her outstretched arms.

" Tell Chifney to bring the horse up to the square lawn,
here, right in front of the house. — Hush, my kitty sweet. —
He is to bring the horse himself. None of the stable boys or

THE CLOWN 87

helpers are to come. It is not to be an entertainment, but an
execution. I wish it done quietly."

" Very well/' Ormiston repeated. He hesitated, strong
protest rising to his lips, which he could not quite bring him-
self to utter. Katherine, the courage and tragedy of her an-
ger, dominated him as she moved to and fro in the sunshine
soothing her child.

" You know it's a valuable horse," he remarked, at last,
tentatively.

'' So much the better. You do not suppose I should care to
take that which costs me nothing ? I am quite willing to pay.
— Sleep, my pet, so — is that better ? — I do not propose to de-
fraud— hush, baby darling, hush — Richard's son of any part of
his inheritance. Tell Chifney to name a price for the Clown,
an outside price. He shall have a cheque to-morrow, which
he is to enter with the rest of the stable accounts. — Now go,
please. We understand each other clearly, and it is growing
late. — Poor honey love, what vexes you ? — You will shoot the
Clown, here, before sunset. And, Roger, it must lie where it
falls to-night. Let some of the men come early to-morrow,
with a float. It is to go to the kennels."

Ormiston got up, shaking his shoulders as though to rid
himself of some encumbering weight. He crossed to the fire-
place and kicked the logs together.

" I don't half like it," he said. " I tell you I don't. It
seems such a cold-blooded butchery. I can't tell if it's wrong
or right. It seems merciless. And it is so unlike you, Kitty,
to be merciless."

He turned to her as he spoke, and Katherine — her head
erect, her eyes full of the sombre fire of her profound aliena-
tion and revolt — drew her hand slowly down over the fine
lawn and lace of the baby's long white robe, and held it flat
against the soles of the child's hidden feet.

" Look at this," she said. " Remember, too, that the de-
light of my life has gone from me, and that I am young yet.
The years will be many — and Richard is dead. Has much
mercy been shown to me, do you think ? "

And the young man seeing her, knowing the absolute sin-
cerity of her speech, felt a lump rise in his throat. After all,
when you have acted hangman to your own sister, as he rea-
soned, it is but a small matter to act slaughterman to a horse.

88 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

CC

Very well," he answered, huskily enough. "It shall be
as you wish, Kitty. Only go back to the sofa, and stay there,
please. If I think you are watching, I can't be quite sure of
myself. Something may go wrong, and we don't want a scene
which will make talk. This is a business which should be
got through as quickly and decently as possible."

The sun was but five minutes high, and no longer brightened
the southern house front, though it spread a ruddy splendour
over the western range of gables, and lingered about the stacks
of slender twisted chimneys, and cast long slanting shadows
across the lawns and carriage drives, before Lady Calmady's
waiting drew to a close. From the near trees of the elm ave-
nue, and from the wood overhanging the pond below the ter-
raced kitchen gardens, came the singing of blackbirds and
thrushes — whether raised as evening hymn in praise of their
Creator, or as love-song each to his mate, who shall say ?
Possibly as both, since in simple minds — and that assuredly is
matter for thankfulness — earthly and heavenly affections are
bounded by no harsh dividing line. The chorus of song found
its way in at the wmdows of Katherine's room — fresh as the
spring flowers which filled it, innocent of hatred and wrong as
the face of the now placid baby, his soft cheeks flushed with
slumber, as he nestled in against his mother's bosom.

Indeed a long time had passed. Twice Denny had looked
in and, seeing that quiet reigned, had noiselessly withdrawn.
For Katherine, still physically weak, drained, moreover, by the
greatness of her recent emotion, her senses lulled to rest by
the warm contact and even breathing of the child, had sunk
away into a dreamless sleep.

The questioning neigh of a stallion, a scuffle of horse hoofs,
footsteps approaching round the corner of the house, passing
across the broad graveled carriage sweep and on to the turf,
aroused her. And these sounds were so natural, full of vigor-
ous outdoor life and the wholesome gladness of it, that for a
moment she came near repentance of her purpose. But then
feeling, as he rested on her arm, her baby's shortened, mal-
formed limbs, and thinking of her wcll-beloved dying, maimed
and spent, in the fulness of his manhood, her face took on
that ashen pallor again and all relenting left her. There was
a satisfaction of wild justice in the act about to be consum-
mated. And Katherine raised herself from the pink brocade

THE CLOWN 89

cushions, and sat erect, her lips parted in stern excitement, her
forehead contracted in the effort to hear, her eyes fixed on the
wide, carven, ebony bed and its embroidered hangings. The
poor Hart had, indeed, ceased to pasture in reposeful security
before the quaint pavilion, set — for its passing refreshment —
in the midst of the Forest of This Life. Now it fled, desper-
ate, by crooked tangled ways, over rocks, through briars, while
Care, the Leopard, followed hard behind.

First Roger Ormiston's voice reached her in brief direction,
and the trainer's in equally brief reply. The horse neighed
again — a sound strident and virile, the challenge of a creature
of perfect muscle, hot desire, and proud, quick-coursing blood.
Afterwards, an instant's pause, and Chifney's voice again, —
^' So-ho — my beauty — take it easy — steady there, steady, good
lad," and the slap of his open hand on the horse's shoulder
straightening it carefully into place. While behind and below
all this, in sweet incongruous undertone of uncontrollable joy,
arose the carolling of the blackbirds and thrushes praising, ac-
cording to their humble powers, God, life, and love.

Finally, as climax of the drama, the sharp report of a pistol,
ringing out in shattering disturbance of the peace of the fair
spring evening, followed by a dead silence, the birds all scared
and dumb — a silence so dead, that Katherine Calmady held
her breath, almost awed by it, while the hissing and crackling
of the little flames upon the hearth seemed to obtrude as an
indecent clamour. This lasted a few seconds. Then the
noise of a plunging struggle and the mufHed thud of something
falling heavily upon the turf. —

Dr. Knott had been up all night, but his patient, Lord
Denier's second coachman, would pull through right enough ;,
so he started on his homeward journey in a complacent frame
of mind. He reckoned it would save him a couple of miles,
let alone the long hill from Farley Row up to Spendle Flats,
if on his way back from Grimshott he went by Brockhurst
House. It is stretching a point, he admitted, to drive under
even your neighbour's back windows at five o'clock in the
morning. But the doctor being himself in an unusually
amiable attitude, was inclined to accredit others with a like
share of good temper. Moreover, the natural man in him
cried increasingly loudly for food and bed.

John Knott was not given to sentimental rhapsodies over

90 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the beauties of nature. Like other beauties she had her dirt}*
enough moods, he thought. Still, in his own half-snarling
fashioFi, he dearly loved this forest country in which he had
been bom and bred, while he was too keen a sportsman to be
unobservant of any aspect of wind and weather, any move-
ment of bird or beast. With the collar of his long drab driv-*
ing-coat turned up about his ears, and the stem of a well-
coloured meerschaum pipe between his teeth, he sat huddled
together in the high, swinging gig, with Timothy, the weazel-
faced, old groom by his side, while the drama of the opening
day unfolded itself before his somewhat critical gaze. He
noted that it would be fine, though windy. In the valley,
over the Long Water, spread beds of close, white mist. The
blue of the upper sky was crossed by curved windows of flaky,
opalescent cloud. In the east, above the dusky rim of the fir
woods on the edge of the high-lying tableland, stretched a
blinding blaze of rose-saffron, shading through amber into
pale primrose colour above. The massive house front, and
the walls fencing the three sides of the square enclosure be-
fore it, with the sexagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses at
either corner, looked pale and unsubstantial in that diffused,
unearthly light. At the head of the elm avenue, passing
through the high, wrought-iron gates and along the carriage
drive which skirts the said enclosure, — the great, square grass
plot on the right hand, the red wall of the kitchen gardens on
the left, — Dr. Knott had the reins nearly jerked out of his
hand. The mare started and swerved, grazing the off wheel
against the brickwork, and stopped, her head in the air, her
ears pricked, her nostrils dilated showing the red.

^' Hullo, old girl, what's up? Seen a ghost?" he said,
drawing the whip quietly across the hollow of her back.

But the marc only braced herself more stiffly, refusing to
move, while she trembled and broke into a sudden sweat.
The doctor was interested and looked about him. He would
first find the cause of her queer behaviour, and give her a
good dressing down afterwards if she deserved it.

The smooth, slightly up-sloping lawn was powdered with
innumerable dewdrops. In the centre of it, neck outstretched,
the fine legs doubled awkwardly together, the hind quarters
and barrel rising, as it lay on its side, in an unshapely lump,
gray from the drenching dew^ was a dead horse. Along the

THE CLOWN 91

top of the further wall a smart and audacious party of jack-
daws had stationed themselves, with much ruffling of gray,,
neck feathers impudent squeakings and chatter. While a
pair of carrion crows hopped slowly and heavily about the
carcass, flapping up with a stroke or two of their broad wings
in sudden suspicion, then settling down again nearer than be--
fore.

" Go to her head, Timothy, and get her by as quietly as
you can. I'll be after you in a minute, but Fm bound to see
what the dickens they've been up to here."

As he spoke Dr. Knott hitched himself down from off the
gig. He was cramped with sitting, and moved forward awk-
wardly, his footsteps leaving a track of dark irregular patches
upon the damp grass. As he approached, the jackdaws flung
themselves gleefully upward from the wall, the sun glinting
on their glossy plumage as they circled and sailed away across
the park. But the crow who had just begun work in earnest,
stood his ground, notwithstanding the warning croak of his
more timid mate. He grasped the horse's skull with his
claws, and tore away greedily at the fine skin about the eye-
socket with his strong, black beak.

" How's this, my fine gentleman, in too much of a hurry
this morning to wait for the flavour to get into your meat ? '*
John Knott said, as the bird rose sullenly at last. " Got a
small hungry family at home, I suppose, crying ' give, give.*
Well, that's taught better men than you, before now, not to be
too nice, but to snatch at pretty well anything they can get."

He came close and stood looking meditatively down at the
dead race-horse — recognised its long, white-reach face, the
colour and make of it, while his loose lips worked with a con-
temptuous yet pitying smile.

" So that's the way my lady's taken it, has she ? " he said
presently. " On the whole I don't know that I'm sorry. In
some cases much benefit unquestionably is derivable from let-
ting blood. This shows she doesn't mean to go under if I
know her ; and that's a mercy, for that poor little beggar, the
baby's sake."

He turned and contemplated the stately facade of the house.
The ranges of windows, blind with closed shutters and drawn
curtains, in the early sunshine gave off their many panes a
broad dazzle of white light.

92 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

'^ Poor little beggar," he repeated, '' with his forty thousand
a year and all the rest of it. Such a race to run and yet so
badly handicapped ! '*

He stooped down, examined ihe horse, found the mark of
the bullet.

" Contradictory beings, though, these dear women," he
went on. " So fanciful and delicate, so sensitive you're afraid
to lay a finger on them. So unselfish, too, some of them,
they seem too good for this old rough and tumble of a world.
And yet touch 'em home, and they'll show an unscrupulous
■savagery of which we coarse brutes of men should be more
than half ashamed. God Almighty made a little more than
He bargained for when He made woman. She must have
surprised Him pretty shrewdly, one would think, now and then
^ince the days of the apple and the snake."

He moved away up the carriage drive, following Timothy,
the sweating, straining mare, and swinging gig. The carrion
crow flapped back, with a croak, and dropped on the horse's skull
again. Hearing that bodeful sound the doctor paused a mo-
ment, knocking the ashes out of his pipe, and looking round
at the bird at its ugly work, set as foreground to that pure
glory of the sunrise, and the vast noble landscape, misty val-
ley, dewy grassland, far ranging hillside crowned with wood.

" The old story," he muttered, " always repeating itself.
And it strikes one as rather a wasteful, clumsy contrivance, at
times. Life forever feeding on death — death forever breed-
ing life."

Thus ended the Clown, own brother to Touchstone, of
merry name and mournful memory, paying the penalty of
wholly involuntary transgressions. From which ending an-
other era dated at Brockhurst, the most notable events of
which it is the purpose of the ensuing pages duly to set forth.

BOOK II

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS

CHAPTER I

RECORDING SOME ASPECTS OF A SMALL PILGRIM S PROGRESS

TT Is an ill wind that blows nobody good, says the comfort-
able proverb. Which would appear to be but another
manner of declaring that the law of compensation works per-
manently In human affairs. All quantities, material and im-
material alike, are, of necessity, stable ; therefore the loss or
defect of one participant must — Indirectly, no doubt, yet very
surely — make for the gain of some other. As of old, so noWy
the blood of the martyrs Is the seed of the Church.

Julius March would, how gladly, have been among the
martyrs ! But the lot fell otherwise. And — always admitting
the harshness of the limitations he had imposed on himself —
the martyrdom of those he held dearest, did. In fact, work to
secure him a measure of content that had otherwise been un-
attainable. The twelve years following the birth of Lady
Calmady's child were the most fruitful of his life. He filled
a post no other person could have filled ; one which, while
satisfying his religious sense and priestly ideal of detachment^
appeased the cravings of his heart and developed the practical
man In him. The contemplative and introspective attitude
was balanced by an active and objective one. For he con-
tinued to live under his dear lady's roof, seeing her daily and
serving her In many matters. He watched her, admiring her
clear yet charitable judgment and her prudence in business*
He bowed in reverence before her perfect singleness of pur-

93

^4 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

pose. He was almost appalled, apprehending, now and then,
the secret abysses of her womanhood, the immensity of her
self-devotion, the swing of her nature from quick, sensitive
shrinking to almost impious pride. Man is the outcome of
the eternal common sense ; woman that of some moment of
divine folly. Meanwhile the ways of true love are many ;
and Julius March, thus watching his dear lady, discovered, as
other elect souls have discovered before him, that the way of
chastity and silence, notwithstanding its very constant heart-
ache, is by no means among the least sweet. The entries in
his diaries of this period arc intermittent, concise, and brief —
naturally enough, since the central figure of Julius's mental
picture had ceased, happily for him, to be himself.

And not only Katherine's sorrows, but the unselfish action
of another woman went to make Julius March's position at
Brockhurst tenable. A few days after Ormiston's momentous
interview with his sister, news came of Mrs. St. Quentin's
death. She had passed hence peacefully In her sleep. Knowl-
edge of the facts of poor, little Dickie Calmady's ill-fortune
had been spared her. For It would be more satisfactory — so
Mademoiselle de MIrancourt had remarked, not without a
shade of irony — that if Lucia St. Quentin must learn the sad
fact at all, she should do so where le hon Dieu Himself would
be at hand to explain matters, and so, in a degree, set them
right.

Early in April Mademoiselle de MIrancourt had gathered
together her most precious possessions and closed the pretty
apartment in the rue de Rennes. It had been a happy halt-
ing-place on the journey of life. It was haunted by well-
beloved ghosts. It cost not a little to bid It, the neighbouring
church of the St. Germain des Pres, where she had so long
worshipped, and her little CQterie of Intimate friends, farewell.
Yet she set forth, taking with her Henriette, the hard-featured,
old, Breton maid, and Monsieur Pouf^ the gray, Persian cat, —
he protesting plaintively from within a large Manilla basket, —
and thus accompanied, made pilgrimage to Brockhurst. And
when Katherine, all the lost joys of her girlhood assailing her
at sight of her lifelong friend, had broken down for once, and,
laying her beautiful head on the elder woman's shoulder, had
sobbed out a question as to when this visit must end, Marie de
MIrancourt had answered —

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 95

*' That, most dear one, is precisely as you shall see fit ta
decide. It need not end till I myself end, if you so please."

And when Katherine, greatly comforted yet fearing to be
over-greedy of comfort, had reasoned with her, reminding her
of tlie difference of climate, the different habits of living in
that gay, little Paris home and this great English country
house ; reminding her, further, of her so often and fondly ex~
pressed desire to retire from the world while yet in the com-
plete possession of her powers and prepare for the inevitable
close within the calm and sacred precincts of the convent —
the otiier replied almost gaily —

" Ah, my child ! I have still a naughty little spirit of experi-
ment in me which defiles the barbarities of your climate.
While as to the convent, it has beckoned so long — let it
beckon still ! It called first when my fiance died, — God rest
his soul, — worn out by the hardships he endured in the war
of La Vendee and I put from me forever all thought of mar-
riage. But then my mother, an emigrant here in London^
claimed all my care. It called me again when she departed,
dear saintly being. But then there were my brother's sons —
orphaned by the guillotine — to place. And when I had es-
tablished them honourably, our beloved Lucia turned to me,,
with her many enchantments and exquisite tragedy of the
heart. And, now, in my old age I come to you — whom I re-
ceive from her as a welcome legacy — to remain just so long as
I am not a burden to you. Second childhood and first should
understand one another. We will play delightful games to-
gether, the dear baby and I. So let the convent beckon. For
the convent is perhaps, after all, but an impatient grasping at
the rest of paradise, before that rest is fairly earned. I have
a good hope that, after all, we give ourselves most acceptably
to God in thus giving ourselves to His human creatures."

Thus did Marie de Mirancourt, for love's sake, condemn
herself to exile, thereby rendering possible — among other
things — Julius's continued residence at Brockhurst. P'or Cap-
tain Ormiston had held true to his resolve of scorning the de-
lights of idlen-ess, the smiles of ladies more kind than wise,,
and all those other pleasant iniquities to which idleness in-
clines the young and full-blooded, of bidding farewell to Lon-
don and Windsor, and proceeding to "live laborious days" in
some far country. He had offered to remain indefinitely with

96 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Katherlne if she needed him. But she refused. Let him be
faithful to the noble profession of arms and make a name for
himself therein.

" Brockhurst has ceased to be a place for a soldier," she
said. " Leave it to women and priests ! " And then, repent-
ing of the bitterness of her speech, she added : — " Really there
is not more work than I can manage, with Julius to help me
at times. lies is a good servant if a little tediously pompous,
and Chifney must see to the stables." — Lady Calmady paused,
and her face grew hard. But for her husband's dying request,
she would have sold every horse in the stud, razed the great
square of buildings to the ground and made the site of it a
dunghill. " Work is a drug to deaden thought. So it is a
kindness to let me have plenty of it, dear old man. And I
fear, even when the labour of each day is done, and Dickie is
safe asleep, — poor darling, — I shall still have more than
enough of time for thought, for asking those questions to
which there seems no answer, and for desires, vain as they are
persistent, that things were somehow, anyhow, other than they
are ! "

Therefore it came about that a singular quiet settled down
on Brockhurst — a quiet of waiting, of pause, rather than of
accomplishment. But Julius March, for reasons aforesaid, and
Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, in virtue of her unclouded faith
in the teachings of her Church, — which assures its members of
the beneficent purpose working behind all the sad seeming of
this world, — alike rejoiced in that. A change of occupations
and of interests came naturally with the change of the seasons,
with the time to sow and reap, to plant saplings, to fell timber,
to fence, to cut copsing, to build or rebuild, to receive rents or
remit them, to listen to many appeals, to readjust differences,
to feed game or to shoot it, to bestow charity of meat and fuel,
to haul ice in winter to the ice-house from the la-ke. But beyond
all this there was little going or coming at Brockhurst. The
magnates of the countryside called at decent intervals, and at
decent intervals Lady Calmady returned their civilities. But
having ceased to entertain, she refused to receive entertainment.
She shut herself away in somewhat jealous seclusion, defiant of
possibly curious glances and pitying tongues. Before long her
neighbours, therefore, came to raise their eyebrows a little in
speaking of her, and to utter discreet regrets that Lady Calmady,

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 97

though handsome and charming when you saw her, was so very
eccentric, adding — " Of course every one knows there is some--
thing very uncomfortable about the little boy ! " Then would
follow confidences as to the disastrous results of popish influ-
ences and Romanising tendencies ; and an openly expressed
conviction — more especially on the part of ladies blessed with
daughters of marriageable age — that it would have been so ver\
much better for many people if the late Sir Richard Calmady
had looked nearer home for a bride.

But these comments did not afFect Katherine. In point of
fact they rarely reached her ears. Alone among her neigh-
bours, Mary Cathcart, of the crisp, black hair and gipsy-like
complexion, was still admitted to some intimacy of intercourse*
And the girl was far too loyal either to bring in gossip or to
carry it out. Brockhurst held the romance of her heart. And,,
notwithstanding the earnest wooing — as the years went on — of
more than one very eligible gentleman, Brockhurst continued
to hold it.

Meanwhile the somewhat quaint fixed star around which
this whole system of planets, large and small, very really re-
volved, shone forth upon them all with a cheerful enough light.
For Dickie by no means belied the promise of his babyhood.
He was a beautiful and healthy little boy, with a charming
brilliance of colouring, warm and solid in tone. He had his
mother's changeful eyes, though the blue of them was brighter
than hers had now come to be. He had her dark eyebrows
and eyelashes too, and her finely curved lips. While he bore
likeness to his father in the straight, square-tipped nose and the
close-fitting cap of bright, brown hair with golden stains in it^
growing low in short curling locks on the broad forehead and
the nape of the neck — expressing the shape of the head verv
definitely, and giving it something of antique nobility and
grace.

And the little lad's appearance afforded, in these pleasant
early days at all events, fair index to his temperament. He was
gay-natured, affectionate, intelligent, full of a lively yet cour-
teous curiosity, easily moved to laughter, almost inconveniently
fearless and experimental ; while his occasional thunderbursts
of passion cleared off" quickly into sunshine and blue sky again.
For as yet the burden of deformity rested upon him very lightly.
He associated hardly at all with other children, and had but

98 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

scant occasion to measure his poor powers of locomotion
against their normal ones. Lady Fallowfeild it is true, in
obedience to suggestions on the part of her kindly lord and
master, offered tentatively to import a carriage load — little
Ludovic Quayle was just the same age as Dickie — from the
Whitney nurseries to spend the day.

" Good fellow, Calmady. I liked Calmady,'' Lord Fallow-
feild had said to her. His conversation, it may be observed,
was nothing if not interjcctional. " Pretty woman. Lady Cal-
mady— terrible thing for her being left as she is. Always shall
regret Calmady. Very sorry for her. Always have been sorry
for a pretty woman in trouble. Ought to see something of
her, my dear. The two estates join, and, as I always have
said, it's a duty to support your own class. Can't expect the
masses to respect you unless you show them you're prepared
to stand by your own class. Just take some of the children
over to see Lady Calmady. Pretty children, do her good to
see them. Rode uncommonly straight did Calmady. Terribly
upsetting thing his funeral. Never shall forget it. Always did
like Calmady — good fellow, Calmady. Nasty thing his death."

But Katherine's pen was fertile in excuses to avoid the
invasion from Whitney. Lady Fallowfeild's small brains and
large domestic complacency were too trying to her. And that
noble lady, it must be owned, was secretly not a little glad to
have her advances thus firmly, though gently, repulsed. For
she was alarmed at Lady Calmady's reported acquaintance with
foreign lands and with books ; added to which her simple mind
harboured much grisly though vague terror concerning the
Roman Church. Picture all her brood of little Quayles incon-
tinently converted into little monks and nuns with shaven
heads ! How such sudden conversion could be accomplished
Lady Fallowfeild did not presume to explain. It sufficed her
that " everybody always said Papists were so dreadfully clever
and unscrupulous you never could tell what they might not do

next."

Once, when Dickie was about six years old. Colonel St.
Quentin brought his young wife and two little girls to stay at
Brockhurst. Kathcrine had a great regard for her cousin, yet
the visit was never repeated. On the flat poor Dick could
manage fairly well, his strangely shod feet traveling laboriously
along in effort after rapidity j his hands hastily outstretched

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 99

now and again to lay hold of door-jamb or table-edge, since
his balance was none of the securest. But in that delightfully
varied journey from the nursery, by way of his mother's bed-
room, the Chapel-Room next door, the broad stair-head, — with
its carven balusters, shiny oak flooring, and fine landscapes by
Claude and Hobbema, — the state drawing-room and Hbraries,
to that America of his childish dreams, that country of mag-
nificent distances and large possibility of discovery, the Long
Gallery, he was speedily distanced by the three-year-old Betty^
let alone her six-year-old sister Honoria, a tall, slim, little
maiden, daintily high-bred of face and fleet of foot as a hind.
This was bad enough. But the stairways afforded yet more
aflilicting experiences — the descent of even the widest and
shallowest flights presented matter of insuperable difficulty ;
while the ascent was only to be achieved by recourse to all-
fours, against the ignominy of which mode of progression
Dickie's soul revolted. And so the little boy concluded that
he did not care much about little girls; and confided to his^
devoted play-fellow Clara — Mrs. Denny's niece and sometime
second still-room maid, now promoted, on account of her many
engaging qualities, to be Dickie's special attendant — that : —

" They went so quick, they always left him behind, and it
was not nice to be left behind, and it was very rude of them ta
do it j didn't Clara think so ? "

And Clara, as in duty and affection bound, not without ad-
ditional testimony in a certain dimness of her pretty, honesty
brown eyes, did indeed very much think so. It followed, there-
fore, that Dickie saw the St. Quentin family drive away,
nurses and luggage complete, quite unmoved. And returned
with satisfaction and renewed self-confidence to the exclusive
society of all those dear grown-up people — gentle and simple
— who were never guilty of leaving him behind; to that of
Camp, the old, white bulldog, and young Camp, his son and
heir, who, if they so far forgot themselves as to run away, in-
variably ran back again and apologised, fawning upon him and
pushing their broad, ugly, kindly muzzles into his hands; and
to that of Monsieur Pouf^ the gray Persian cat, who, far from
going too quickly, displayed such majestic deliberation of move-
ment and admirable dignity of waving fluffed tail, that it re-
quired much patient coaxing on Dickie's part ever to make
him leave his cushion by the fire and go at all.

100 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

But^ with the above-mentioned exception, the little boy's
self-content suffered but slight disturbance. He took himself
very much for granted. He was very curious of outside
things, very much amused. Moreover, he was king of a far
from contemptible kingdom ; and in the blessed ignorance of
childhood — that finds pride and honour in things which a
wider and sadder knowledge often proves far from glad or
glorious — it appeared to him not unnatural that a king should
differ, even to the point of some slightly impeding disabilities,
from the rank and file of his obedient and devoted subjects.
For Dickie, happily for him, was as yet given over to that
wholly pleasant vanity, the aristocratic idea. The rough jus-
tice of democracy, and the harsh breaking of all purely per-
sonal and individualistic dreams that comes along with it, for
him, was not just yet.

And Richard's continued and undismayed acquiescence in
his physical misfortune was fostered, indirectly, by the captiva-
ting poetry of myth and legend with which his mind was fed.
He had an insatiable appetite for stories, and Mademoiselle de
Mirancourt was an untiring raconteuse. On Sunday after-
noons upon the terrace, when the park lay bathed in drowsy
sunshine and sapphire shadows haunted the under edge of the
great woods, the pretty old lady — her eyes shining with gen-
tle laughter, for Marie de Mirancourt's faith had reached the
very perfect stage in which the soul dares play, even as lovers
play, with that it holds most sacred — would tell Dickie — the
fairy tales of her Church. Would tell him of blessed St.
Francis and of Poverty, his sweet, sad bride ; of his sermon
to the birds dwelling in the oak groves along Tiber valley -, of
the mystic stigmata, marking as with nail prints his hands and
feet, and of that indomitable love towards all creatures, which
found alike in the sun in heaven and the heavy-laden ass,
brothers and friends. Or she would tell him of that man of
mighty strength and stature, St. Christopher, who, in the
stormy darkness, — yielding to its reiterated entreaties, — set
forth to bear the little child across the wind-swept ford. How
he staggered in midstream, amazed and terrified under the
awful weight of that, apparently so light, burden ; to learn,
on struggling ashore at last, that he had borne upon his
shoulder no mortal infant, but the whole world and the eternal
maker of it, Christ Himself.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS joi;

These and many another wonder tale of Christian miracle
did she tell to Dickie — he squatting on a rug beside her, rest-
ing his curly head against her knees, while the pink-footed
pigeons hurried hither and thither, picking up the handfuls of
barley he scattered on the flags, and the peacocks sunned
themselves with a certain worldly and disdainful grace on the
hand-rails of the gray balustrades, and young Camp, after some
wild skirmish in search of sport, flung himself down panting,
his tongue lolling out of his grinning jaws, by the boy's side»

And Katherine, putting aside her cares as regent of Dickie's
kingdom and the sorrow that lay so chill against her heart,,
would tell him stories too, but of a different order of senti-
ment and of thought. For Katherine was young yet, and her
stories were gallant — since her own spirit was very brave — or
merry, because it delighted her to hear the boy laugh. And
often, as he grew a little older, she would sit with her arm
round him, in the keen, winter twilights before the lamps-
were lit, on the broad cushioned bench of the oriel window in
the Chapel-Room. Outside, the stars grew in number and
brightness as the dusk deepened. Within, the firelight played
over the white-paneled walls, revealing fitfully the handsome
faces of former Calmadys — short-lived, passing hence all un-
saved with the desperate joys of living — painted by Vandyke
and Sir Peter Lely, or by Romney and Sir Joshua. Then she
would tell him not only of Aladdin, of Cinderella, and time-^
honoured Puss-in-Boots, but of Merlin the great enchanter^
and of King Arthur and his company of noble knights. And
of the loves of Sigurd the Niblung and Brunhiida the wise
and terrible queen, and of their lifelong sorrow, and of the
fateful treasure of fairy gold which lies buried beneath the
rushing waters of the Rhine. Or she would tell him of those
cold, clear, far-off times in the northern sojourning places of
our race — tell him of the cow Audhumla, alone in the vast
plain at the very beginning of things, licking the stones
crusted over with hoar frost and salt, till, on the third day,
there sprung from them a warrior named Bur, the father of
Bor, the father of Odin, who is the father of all the gods^
She would tell him of wicked Loki too, the deceiver and cun-
ning plotter against the peace of heaven. And of his three
evil children — here Dickie would, for what reason he knew
not, always feel his mother hold him more closely, while her

r6i SIR- RICHARD CALMADY

voice took a deeper tone — Fenrir the wolf, who, when Thor
sought to bind him, bit off the brave god's right hand ; and
Jormungand the Midgard serpent, who, tail in mouth, circles
the world ; and Hela, the pale queen, who reigns in Niflheim
over the dim kingdoms of the dead. And of Baldur the
bright shining god, joy of Asgard, slain in error by Hoder his
blind twin-brother; for whom all things on earth — save one —
weep, and will weep, till in the last days he comes again.
And of All-Father Odin himself, plucking out his right eye
and bartering it for a draught of wisdom-giving water from
Mirmir's magic well. Again, she would tell him of the End
— which it must be owned frightened Dickie a little, so that
he would stroke her cheek, and say softly, '^ But, mummy,
you really are sure, aren't you, it won't happen for a good
while yet ? " — Of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods ;
of the Fimbul winter, and cheerless sun and hurrying, blood-
red moon, and all the direful signs which must needs go be-
fore the last great battle between good and evil.

And through all of these stories, of Christian and heathen
origin alike, Richard began dimly, almost unconsciously, to
trace, recurrent as a strain of austere music, the idea — very
common to ages less soft and fastidious than our own — of
payment in self-restraint and labour, or in actual bodily pain,
loss, or disablement, for all good gained and knowledge won.

He found the same idea again when, under the teaching of
Julius March, he began reading history, and when his little
-skill in Greek and Latin carried him as far as the easier pas-
sages of the classic poets. Dick was a very apt, if somewhat
erratic and inaccurate, scholar. His insatiable curiosity drove
him forward. He scurried, in childish fashion by all short-
cuts available, to get at the heart of the matter — a habit of
mind detestsible to pedants, since to them the letter is the
main object, not the spirit. Happily Julius was ceasing to be
a pedant, even in matters ecclesiastical. He loved the little
boy, the mingled charm and pathos of whose personality held
him as with a spell. With untiring patience he answered, to
the best of his ability, Dickie's endless questions, of how and
why. And, perhaps, he learned even more than he taught,
under this fire of cross-examination. He had never come in-
timately in contact with a child's mind before; and Dickie's
daring speculations and suggestions opened up very surprising

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 103

vistas at times. The boy was a born adventurer; a gaily
audacious sceptic moreover, notwithstanding his large swallow
for romance, until his own morsel of reason and sense of
dramatic fitness were satisfied.

And so, having once apprehended that idea of payment, he
searched for justification of it instinctively in all he saw and
read. He found it again in the immortal story of the siege of
Troy, and in the long wanderings and manifold trials of that
most experimental of philosophers, the great Ulysses. He
found it too in more modern and more authentic history — in
the lives of Galileo and Columbus, of Sir Walter Raleigh and
many another hero and heroine, of whom, because of some
unusual excellence of spirit or attainment, their fellow-men,
and, as it would seem, the very gods themselves, have grown
jealous, not enduring to witness a beauty rivalling or surpass-
ing their own.

The idea was all confused as yet, coloured by childish
fancies, instinctive merely, not realised. Yet it occupied a
very actual place in the little boy's mind. He lingered over
it silently, caressing it, returning to it again and again in half-
frightened delight. It lent a fascination, somewhat morbid
perhaps, to all ill-favoured and unsightly creatures — to blind
worms and slow-moving toads ; to trapped cats and dusty, dis-
abled, winter flies ; to a winged sea-gull, property of Bushnell,
one of the under-gardeners, that paced, picking up loathsome
living in the matter of slugs and snails, about the cabbage beds,
all the tragedy of its lost power of flight and of the freedom
of the sea in its wild, pale eyes.

It further provoked Dickie to expend all his not incon-
siderable gift of draughtsmanship, in the production of long
processions of half-human monsters of a grotesque and essen-
tially uncomfortable character. He scribbled these upon all
available pieces of paper, including the fly-leaves of Todhunter's
Arithmetic, and of his Latin and Greek primers. In an evil
hour, for the tidiness of his school-books, he came across the
ballad of " Aiken-Drum," with its rather terrible mixture of
humour, realism, and the supernatural. From thenceforth for
some weeks — though he adroitly avoided giving any direct
account of the origin of these grisly imaginative freaks — many
margins were adorned, or rather defaced, by fancy portraits of
that " foul and stalwart ghaist " the Brownie of Badnock^

104 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

So did Dickie dwell, through all his childhood and the early
years of youth, in the dear land of dreams, petted, considered,
sheltered with perhaps almost cruel kindness, from the keen
winds of truth that blow forever across the world. Which
winds, while causing all to suffer and bringing death to the
weak and fearful, to the lovers of lies and the makers of them, go
in the end to strengthen the strong who dare face them, and
fortify these in the acceptance of the only knowledge really
worth having — namely, the knowledge that romance is no ex-
clusive property of the past, or eternal life of the future, but
that both these are here immediately and actually for whoso
has eyes to see and courage to possess.

The fairest dreams are true. Yet it is so ordered that to
know that we must awake from them. And the awakening is
an ugly process enough, too often. When Dickie was about
thirteen, the awakening began for him. It came in time-
honoured forms — those of horses and of a woman.

CHAPTER II

IN WHICH OUR HERO IMPROVES HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH
MANY THINGS — HIMSELF INCLUDED

TT came about in this wise. Roger Ormiston was expected
at Brockhurst, after an absence of some years. He had
served with distinction in the Sikh war; and had seen fighting
on a grand scale in the battles of Sobraon and Chillianwallah.
Later, the restless genius of travel had taken hold on him,
leading him far eastward into China, and northward across the
Himalayan snows. He had dwelt among strange peoples and
looked on strange gods. He had hunted strange beasts, more-
over, and learnt their polity and their ways. He had seen the
bewildering fecundity of nature in the tropic jungle, and her
barren and terrible beauty in the out-stretch of the naked desert.
And the thought of all this set Dickie's imagination on fire.
The return of Roger Ormiston was, to him, as the return of
the mighty Ulysses himself.

For a change was coming over the boy. He began to weary
of fable and cry out for fact. He had just entered his four-

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 105

teenih year. He was growing fast ; and, but for that dwarfing
deformity, would have been unusually tall, graceful and well-
proportioned. But along with this increase of stature had
come a listlessness and languor which troubled Lady Calmady.
The boy was sweet-tempered enough, had his hours, indeed,
of overflowing fun and high spirits. Still he was restless and
tired easily of each occupation in turn. He developed a dis-
quieting relish for solitude ; and took to camping-out on one
of the broad window-seats of the Long Gallery, in company
with volumes of Captain Cook's and Hakluyt's voyages, old-time
histories of sport and natural history ; not to mention Robin-
son Crusoe and the merry but doubtfully decent pages of
Geoffrey Gambado. And his mother noted, not without a
sinking of the heart, that the window-seat, which in his soli-
tary moods Dickie most frequented, was precisely that one of
the eastern bay which commanded — beyond the smooth, green
expanse and red walls of the troco-ground — a good view of
the grass ride, running parallel with the lime avenue, along
which the horses from the racing stables were taken out and
back, morning and evening, to the galloping ground. Then
fears began to assail Katherlne that the boy's childhood, the
content and repose of it, were nearly past. Small wonder that
her heart should sink !

On the day of her brother's return, Katherine, after rather
anxious search, so found Richard. He was standing on the
book-strewn window-seat. He had pushed open the tall narrow
casement and leaned out. The April afternoon was fitfully
bright. A rainbow spanned the landscape, from the Long
Water in the valley to the edge of the forest crowning the
table-land. Here and there showers of rain fell, showing white
against huge masses of purple cloud piled up along the
horizon.

And as Katherine drew near, threading her way carefully
between the Chinese cabinets, oriental jars, and many quaint
treasures furnishing the end of the great room, she saw that,
along the grass ride, some twenty race-horses, came streeling
homeward in single file — a long line of brown, chestnut, black,
and of the raw yellows and scarlets of horse-clothing against
the delicate green of springing turf and opening leaves. Be-
side them, clad in pepper-and-salt mixture, breeches and gaiters
complete, Mr. Chifney pricked forward soberly on his hand-

io6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

some gray cob. The boys called to one another now and
then, admonished a fretful horse breaking away from the string.
One of them whistled shrilly a few bars of that then
popular but undistinguished tune, '' Pop goes the weazel.'*
And Richard craned far out, steadying himself against the
«tone mullion on either side with uplifted hands, heedless alike
of his mother's presence and of the heavy drops of rain which
splattered in at the open casement.

" Dickie, Dickie," Katherine called, in swift anxiety. " Be
careful. You will fall."

She came close, putting her arm round him. " You reck-
less darling," she went on ; " don't you see how dangerous
the least slip would be ? "

The boy straightened himself and looked round at her. His
blue eyes were alight. All the fitful brightness, all the wistful
charm of the April evening was in his face.

" But it's the only place where I can see them, and they're
such beauties," he said. "And I want to see them so much.
You know we always miss them somehow, mummy, when we
go out."

Katherine was off her guard. Three separate strains of
feeling influenced her just then. First, her growing recognition
of the change in Richard, of that passing away of childhood
which could not but make for difficulty and, in a sense, for
pain. Secondly, the natural excitement of her brother's home-
coming, disturbing the monotony of her daily life, bringing,
along with very actual joy, memories of a past, well-beloved yet
gone beyond recall. Lastly, the practical and immediate fear
that Dickie had come uncommonly near tumbling incontinently
out of the window. And so, being moved, she held the boy
tightly and answered rather at random, thereby provoking fate.

" Yes, my dearest, I know we always miss them somehow
when we go out. It is best so. But do pray be more careful
with these high windows."

" Oh ! I'm all right — I'm careful enough." His glance
had gone back to where the last of the horses passed out of
sight behind the red wall of the gardens. " But why is it best
so ? Ah ! they're gone ! " he exclaimed.

Katherine sat down on the window-seat, and Richard, cling-
ing on to the window-ledge, while she still held him, lowered
himself into a sitting position beside her.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 107

" Thank vou, mummy," he said. And the words cut her.
They came so often in each day, and always with the same
little touch of civil dignity. The courtesy of Richard's recog-
nition of help given, failed to comfort her for the fact that help
was so constantly required. Lady Calmady's sense of rebellion
arose and waxed strong whenever she heard these thanks.

"Mother," he went on, " I want to asl. ycu something.
You won't mind ? "

" Do I ever mind you questioning me ? " Yet she felt a
certain tightening about her heart.

"Ah, but this is different! I've wanted to for a long
while, but I did not know if I ought — and yet I did not quite
like to ask Auntie Marie or Julius. And, of course, one
doesn't speak to the servants about anything of that sort."

Richard's curly head went up with a fine, little air of pride
as he said the last few words. His mother smiled at him.
There was no doubt as to her son's breeding.

" Well, what then ? " she said.

" I want to know — you're sure you don't mind — why you
dislike the horses, and never go to the stables or take me there ?
If the horses are wrong, why do we keep them ? And if
they're not wrong, why, mother, don't you see, we may enjoy
them, mayn't we ? "

He flushed, looking up at her, spoke coaxingly, merrily, a
trifle embarrassed by his own temerity, yet keen to prove his
point and acquire possession of this so coveted joy.

Katherine hesitated. She was tempted to put aside his
question with some playful excuse. And yet, where was the
use ? The question must inevitably be answered one day ;
and Katherine, as had been said, was moved just now, dumb-
ness of long habit somewhat melted. Perhaps this was the
appointed time. She drew her arm from around the boy and
took both his hands in hers.

" My dearest," she said, " our keeping the horses is not
wrong. But — one of the horses killed your father."

Richard's lips parted. His eyes searched hers.

" But how ? " he asked presently.

" He was trying it at a fence, and it came down with him
—and trampled him."

There was a pause. At last the boy asked rather breath-
lessly : " Was he killed then, mother, at once ? "

io8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

It had been Katherine's intention to state the facts simply,
gravely, and without emotion. But to speak of these things^
after so long silence, proved more trying than she had antici-
pated. The scene in the red drawing-room, the long agony of
waiting and of farewell rose up before her after ail these years
with a vividness and poignancy that refused to be gain-said.

" No," she answered, " he lived four days. He spoke to
me of many things he wished to do. And — I have done them

all, I think. He spoke to me of you " Katherine closed

her eyes. " The boy might care for the stables. The boy
must ride straight." For the moment she could not look at
Richard, knowing that which she must see. The irony of
those remembered words appeared too great. — " But he
suffered," she went on brokenly, ''he suffered — ah! my^
dear "

" Mummy, darling mummy, don't look like that ! " Dickie
cried. He wrenched his hands from her grasp and threw his
arms impulsively about her neck. " Don't — it hurts me»
And — and, after all," he added, reasoningly, consolingly, " it
wasn't one of these horses, you know. They've never done
anybody any harm. It was an accident. There must always-
be accidents sometimes, mustn't there ? And then, you see, it
all happened long, long ago. It must have, for I don't re-
member anything about it. It must have happened when I
was a baby."

" Alas, no," Katherine exclaimed, wrung by the pathos of
his innocent egoism ; " it happened even before then, my
dearest, before you were born."

With the unconscious arrogance of childhood, Richard had^
so far, taken his mother's devotion very much as a matter of
course. He had never doubted that he was, and always had
been, the inevitable centre of all her interests. So now, her
words and her bearing, bringing — in as far as he grasped them — -
the revelation of aspects of her life quite independent of his
all-important, little self, staggered him. For the first time
poor Dickie realised that even one's own mother, be she never
so devoted, is not her child's exclusive and wholly private
property, but has a separate existence, joys and sorrows apart.
Instinctively he took his arms from about her neck and backed
away into the angle of the window-seat, regarding her with
serious and somewhat startled attention. And, doing so, he for

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 109

the first time realised consciously something more, namely,
the greatness of her beauty.

For the years had dealt kindly with Katherine Calmady.
Not the great sorrows of life, or its great sacrifices, but fretful-
ness, ignoble worries, sordid cares, are that which draw lines
upon a woman's face and harshen her features. At six and
thirty Lady Calmady's skin was smooth and delicate, her
colour, still clear and softly bright. Her hair, though some-
what darker than of old, was abundant. Still she wore it rolled
up and back from her forehead, shov/ing the perfect oval of her
face. Her eyes, too, were darker; and the expression of
them had become profound — the eyes of one who has looked
on things which may not be told and has chosen her part.
Her bosom had become a little fuller ; but the long, inward
curve of her figure below it to the round and shapely waist,
and the poise of her rather small hips, was lithe and free as
ever. While there was that enchanting freshness about her
which is more than the mere freshness of youth or of physical
health — which would seem, indeed, to be the peculiar dowry
of those women who, having once known love in all its com-
pleteness and its strength, of choice live ever afterwards in
perfect chastity of act and thought.

And a perception not only of the grace of her person, as she
sat sideways on the window-seat in her close-fitting, gray
gown, with its frilled lace collar and ruffles at the wrists, came
to Richard now. He perceived something of this more inti-
mate and subtle charm which belonged to her. He was
enthralled by the clear sweetness, as of dewy grass newly
turned by the scythe, which always clung about her, and by
the whispering of her silken garments when she moved. A
sudden reverence for her came upon him, as though, behind
her gracious and so familiar figure, he apprehended that which
belonged to a region superior, almost divine. And then he
was seized — it is too often the fate of worshippers — with
jealousy of that past of hers of which he had been, until now,
ignorant. And yet another emotion shook him, for, in thus
realising and differentiating her personality, he had grown
vividly, almost painfully, conscious of his own.

He turned away, laying his cheek against the stone window-
ledge, while the drops of a passing scud of rain beat in on his
hot face.

no SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"Then — then my father never saw me," he exclaimed
vehemently. And, after a moment's pause, added, " I am
glad of that — very glad."

" Ah ! But, my dearest," Lady Calmady cried, bewildered
and aghast, "you don't know what you are saying — think."

Richard kept his face to the splashing rain.

" I don't want to say anything wrong ; but," he repeated,
« I am glad."

He turned to her, his lips quivering a little, and a desolate
expression in his eyes, which told Katherine, with only too
bitter assurance, that his childhood and the repose of it were
indeed over and gone.

She held out her arms to him in silent invitation, and drew
the dear curly head on to her bosom.

" You're not displeased with me, mummy ? "

" Does this seem as if I was displeased ? " she asked.

Then they sat silent once more, Katherine swaying a little
as she held him, soothing him almost as in his baby days.

"I won't lean out of the window again," he said presently,
with a sigh of comfort. " I promise that."

" There's a darling. But I am afraid we must go. Uncle
Roger will be here soon."

The boy raised his head.

" Mother," he said quickly, " will you send Clara, please,
to put away these books ? And may I have Winter to fetch
me ? I — I'm tired. If you don't mind ? I don't care to
walk."

Yet, since happily at thirteen Richard's moods were still as
many and changeful as the aspects of that same April day, he
enjoyed some royally unclouded hours before he — most un-
willingly— retired to bed that night. For on close acquaint-
ance the great Ulysses proved a very satisfactory hero. Roger
Ormiston's character had consolidated. It was to some pur-
pose that he had put away the pleasant follies of his youth.
He looked out now with a coolness and patience, born of
wide experience, upon men and upon affairs.^ He had ceased
to lose either his temper or his head. Acquiescing with un-
dismayed and cheerful common sense in the fact that life, as
we know it, is but a sorry business, and that rough things
must of necessity be done and suffered every day, he had de-
veloped an active — though far from morbidly sentimental —

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS iir

compassion for the ind 'victual, man and beast alike. Not that
Colonel Ormiston fo> a* .v,=»ted all that, still less held forth upon
it. He was content, as iS so many another Englishman, to
be a dumb and practical philosopher — for which those who
have lived with philosophers of the eloquent sort will unques-
tionably give thanks, knowing, to their sorrow, how often
handsome speech is but a cloak to hide incapacity of honest
doing.

And so, after dinner, under plea of an imperative need of
cigars, Ormiston had borne Dickie off to the Gun-Room ;
and there, in the intervals of questioning him a little about
his tastes and occupations, had told him stories many and
great. For he wanted to get hold of the boy and judge of
what stuff he was made. Like all sound and healthy-minded
men he had an inherent suspicion of the abnormal. He could
not but fear that persons unusually constituted in body must be
the victims of some corresponding crookedness of spirit.
But as the evening drew on he became easy on this point.
Whatever Richard's physical infirmity, his nature was whole-
some enough. Therefore when, at close upon ten o'clock,
f Lady Calmady arrived in person to insist that Dickie must go,
there and then, straight to bed, she found a pleasant scene
awaiting her.

The square room was gay with lamplight and firelight,
which brought into strong relief the pictures of famous horses
and trophies of old-time weapons — matchlocks, basket-handled
swords, and neat silver-hiked rapiers, prettiest of toys with
which to pink your man — that decorated its white-paneled
walls.

Ormiston stood with his back to the fire, one heel on the
fender, his broad shoulders resting against the high chimney-
piece, his head bent forward as he looked down, in steady yet
kindly scrutiny, at the boy. His face was tanned by the sun
and wind of the long sea voyage — people still came home
from India by the Cape — till his hair and moustache showed
pale against his bronzed skin. And to Richard, listening and
I watching from the deep armchair drawn up at right angles to
[ the hearth, he appeared as ^ veritable demigod, master of the
secrets of life and death — beheld, moreover, through an at-
mosphere of fragrant tobacco smoke, curiously intoxicating to
unaccustomed nostrils. Dickie had tucked himself into as

112 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

small a space as possible, to make room for young Camp, who
lay outstretched beside him. The bull-dog's great underhung
jaw and pendulous, wrinkled cheeks rested on the arm of the
chair, as he stared and blinked rather sullenly at the fire —
moved and choked a little, slipping ofF unwillingly to sleep,
to wake with a start, to stare and blink once more. The em-
broidered couvre-pieds^ which Dickie had spread across him,
gathering the top edge of it up under the front of his Eton
jacket, offered luxurious bedding. But Camp was a typical
conservative, slow-witted, stubborn against the ingress of a
new idea. This tall, somewhat masterful stranger must prove
himself a good man and true — according to bull-dog under-
standing of those terms — before he could hope to gain en-
trance to that faithful, though narrow heart.

Ormiston meanwhile, finely contemptuous of canine criti-
cism, greeted his sister cheerily.

"You're bound to give us a little law to-night, Kitty," he
said, holding out his hand to her. " We won't break rules
and indulge in unbridled license as to late hours again, will
we, Dick ? But, you see, we've both been doing a good deal,
one way and another, since we last met, and there were arrears
of conversation to make up." — He smiled very charmingly at
Lady Calmady, and his fingers closed firmly on her hand. —
'' We've been getting on famously, notwithstanding our long
separation." He looked down at Richard again. "Fast
friends, already, and mean to remain so, don't we, old chap ? "

Thereupon Lady Calmady's soul received much comfort.
Her pride was always on the alert, fiercely sensitive concern-
ing Richard. And the joy of this meeting had, till now, an
edge of jealous anxiety to it. If Roger did not take to the
boy, then — deeply though she loved him — Roger must go.
For the same elements were constant in Katherine Calmady.
Not all the discipline of thirteen years had tamed the hot
blood in her which made her order out the Clown for execu-
tion. But as Ormiston spoke, her face softened, her eyes
grew luminous and smiled back at him with an exquisite glad-
ness. The soft gloom of her black velvet dress emphasised
the warm, golden whiteness of her bare shoulders and arms.
Ormiston seeing her just then, understanding something of
the drama of her thought, was moved from his habitual cooi
indifference of bearing.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 113

'' Katherine," he said, " do you know you take one rather
by surprise. Upon my word you're more beautiful than
ever."

And Richard's clear voice rang out eagerly from the depths
of the big chair —

" Yes — yes — isn't she, Uncle Roger — isn't she — delicious ? "

The man's smile broadened almost to laughter.

" You young monkey," he said very gently ; " so you havv>
discovered that fact already, have you ? Well, so much the
better. It's a safe basis to start from ; don't you think so,
Kitty P "

But Lady Calmady drew away her hand. The blood had
rushed into her face and neck. Her beauty, now, for so long,
had seemed a negligible quantity, a thing that had outlasted
its need and use — since he who had so rejoiced in it was dead.
What is the value of ever so royal a crown when the throne
it represents has fallen to ruin ? And yet, being very much a
woman, those words of praise came altogether sweetly to
Katherine from the lips of her brother and her son. She
moved away, embarrassed, not quite mistress of herself, sat
down on the arm of Richard's chair, leaned across him and
patted the bull-dog — who raised his heavy head with a grunt,
and slapped Dickie smartly in the stomach with his tail, by
way. of welcome.

" You dear foolish creatures," she said, " pray talk of some-
thing more profitable. I am growing old, and, in some ways,
I am rather thankful for it. All the same, Dickie, darling,
you positively must and shall go to bed."

But Colonel Ormiston interrupted her. He spoke with a
trace of hesitation, turning to the fireplace and flicking the
ash off the end of his cigar.

" By the bye, Katherine, how's Mary Cathcart ? Have
you seen her lately ? "

" Yes, last week."

"Then she's not gone the way of all flesh and married ?"

" No," Lady Calmady answered. She bent a little lower,
tracing out the lines on the dog's wrinkled forehead with her
finger. " Several men have asked her to marry. But there
is only one man in the world, I fancy, whom Mary would
ever care to marry — poor Camp, did I tickle you ? — and he, I
believe, has not asked her yet."

114 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

'' Ah ! there/' Ormiston exclaimed quickly, " you are mis-
taken."

"Am I?" Katherine said. "I have great faith in Mary.
I suppose she was too wise to accept even him, being not
wholly convinced of his love."

Lady Calmady raised her eyes. Ormiston looked very
keenly at her. And Richard, watching them, felt his breath
come rather short with excitement, for he understood that his
mother was speaking in riddles. He observed, moreover, that
Colonel Ormiston's face had grown pale for all its sunburn.

" And so," Katherine went on, " I think the man in ques-
tion had better be quite sure of his own heart before he offers
it to Mary Cathcart again."

Ormiston flung his half-smoked cigar into the fire. He
came and stood in front of Richard.

" Look here, old chap," he said, " what do you say to our
driving over to Newlands to-morrow ? You can set me right
if I've forgotten any of the turns in the road, you know. And
you and Miss Cathcart are great chums, aren't you? "

" Mother, may I go ? " the boy asked.

Lady Calmady kissed his forehead.

" Yes, my dearest," she said. " I will trust you and Uncle
Roger to take care of each other for once. You may go."

The immediate consequence of all which was, that Richard
went to bed that night with a brain rather dangerously active
and eyes rather dangerously bright. So that when sleep at last
visited him, it came burdened with dreams, in which the many
impressions and emotions of the day took altogether too lively
a part, causing him to turn restlessly to and fro, and throw his
arms out wide over the cool linen sheets and pillow.

For there was new element in Dickie's dreams to-night : —
namely, a recurrent distress of helplessness and incapacity of
movement, and therefore of escape, in the presence of some
on-coming multitudinous terror. He was haunted, moreover,
by a certain stanza of the ballad of Chevy Chase. It had
given him a peculiar feeling, sickening yet fascinating, ever
since he could remember first to have read it, a feeling which
caused him to dread reading it beforehand, yet made him turn
back to it again and again. And to-night, sometimes Richard
was himself, sometimes his personality seemed merged in
that of Witherington, the crippled fighting-man, of whose

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 115

maiming and deadly courage that stanza tells. And the battle
was long and fierce, as from out a background of steeple-
shaped, honey-combed rocks and sparse trees with large golden
leaves — like those on the panels of the great, lacquered cabi-
nets in the Long Gallery — innumerable hordes of fanatic
Chinamen poured down on him, a hideous bedizenment of
vermilion war-devils painted on their blue tunics and banners
and shields. And he, Richard, — or was it he, Witherington ?
— alone facing them all, — they countless in number, always
changing yet always the same. From under their hard, up-
turned hats, a peacock feather erect in each, the cruel, oblique-
eyed, impassive faces stared at him. They pressed him back
and back against the base of a seven-storied pagoda, the wind
bells of which jangled far above him from the angles of its
tiers of fluted roofs. And the sky was black and polished.
Yet it was broad, glaring daylight, every object fearfully dis-
tinct. And he was fixed there, unable to get away because —
yes, of course, he was Witherington, so there was no need of
further explanation of that inability of escape.

And still, at the same time, he could see Chifney on the
handsome gray cob, trotting soberly along the green ride, be-
side the long string of race-horses coming home from exercise.
The young leaves were fragile and green now, not sparse and
metallic, and the April rain splashed in his face. He tried to
call out to Tom Chifney, but the words died in his throat. If
they would only put him on one of those horses ! He knew
he could ride, and so be safe and free. He called again. That
time his voice came. They must hear. Were they not his
own servants, after all, and his own horses — or would be soon,
when he was grown up? But neither the trainer, nor the
boys so much as turned their heads ; and the living ribbon of
brown and chestnut swept on and away out of sight. No one
would heed him, no one would hearken to his cry.

Once his mother and some man, whom he knew yet did not
know, passed by him hand in hand. She wore a white dress,
and smiled with a look of ineffable content. Her companion
was tall, gracious in bearing and movement, but unsubstantial,
a luminous shadow merely. Richard could not see his face.
Yet he knew the man was of near kin to him. And to them
he tried to speak. But it was useless. For now he was not
Richard any more. He was not evei? Witherington, the crip-

ii6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

pled fighting-man of the Chevy Chase ballad. He was — he
was the winged sea-gull, with wild, pale eyes, hiding — abject
yet fierce — among the vegetable beds in the Brockhurst
kitchen-gardens, and picking up loathsome provender of snails
and slugs. Roger Ormiston, calm, able, kindly, yet just a
trifle insolent, cigar in mouth, sauntered up and looked at the
bird, and it crawled away among the cabbages ignominiously,
covered with the shame of its incompleteness and its fallen
estate.

And then from out the honey-combed rocks, under the
black, polished sky, the blue tunicked Chinamen swept down
on Richard again with the maddening horror of infinite num-
ber. They crushed in upon him, nearer and nearer, pressing
him back against the wall of that evil pagoda. The air was
hot and musky with their breath and thick with the muffled
roar of their countless footsteps. And they came right in on
him, trampling him down, suffocating, choking him with the
heat of them and the dead weight.

Shouting aloud — as it seemed to him — in angry terror, the
boy woke. He sat up trembling, wet with perspiration, be-
wildered by the struggle and the wild phantasmagoria of his
dream. He pulled open the neck of his nightshirt, leaned hr,
head against the cool brass rail of the back of the bedstead,
while he listened with growing relief to the rumble of the wind
in the chimney, and the swish of the rain against the case-
ments, and watched the narrow line of light under the door of
his mother's room.

Yes, he was Richard Calmady, after all, here in his own
sheltered world, among those who had loved and served him
all his life. Nothing hurtful could reach him here, nothing of
which he need be afraid. There was no real meaning in that
ugly dream.

And then Dickie paused a moment, still sitting up in the
warm darkness, pressing his hands down on the mattress on
either side to keep himself from slipping. For involuntarily
he recalled the feeling which had prompted his declaration that
he was glad his father had never seen him ; recalled his un-
willingness to walk, lest he should meet Ormiston unex-
pectedly ; recalled the instinct which, even during that glori-
ous time in the Gun-Room, had impelled him to keep the
embroidered couvre-pieds carefully over his legs and feet. And,

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 117

recalling these things, poor Dickie arrived at conclusions
regarding himself which he had happily avoided arriving at
before. For they were harsh conclusions, causing him to
cower down in the bed, and bury his face in the pillows to
stifle the sound of the tearing sobs which would come.

Alas ! was there not only too real a meaning in that same
ugly dream and that shifting of personality ? He understood,
while his body quivered with the anguish of it, that he had
more in common with, and was nearer, far nearer, to the
maimed fighting-man of the old ballad, even to the poor sea-
gull robbed of its power of flight, than to all those dear people
whose business in life it seemed to pet and amuse him, and to
minister to his every want — to the handsome soldier uncle,
whose home-coming had so excited him, to Julius March, his
indulgent tutor, to Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, his delightful
companion, to Clara, his obedient playfellow, to brown-eyed
Mary Cathcart, and even to his lovely mother herself!

Thus did the bitter winds of truth, which blow forever
across the world, first touch Richard Calmady, cutting his poor
boyish pride as with a whip. But he was very young. And
the young, mercifully, know no such word as the inevitable ;
so that the wind of truth is ever tempered for them — the first
smart of it over — by the sunshine of ignorant and unlimited
hope.

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING THAT WHICH, THANK GOD, HAPPENS ALMOST

EVERY DAY

' f^HE merry spring sky was clear, save in the south where
a vast perspective of dappled cloud lay against it, leaving
winding rivers of blue here and there, as does ribbed sand for
the incoming tide. As the white gate of the inner park — the
gray unpainted palings ranging far away to right and left —
swung to behind them, and Henry the groom, after a smart
run, clambered up into his place again beside Camp on the
back seat of the double dog-cart, Richard's spirits rose.
Straight ahead stretched out the long vista of that peculiar

ii8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

glory of Brockhurst, its avenue of Scotch firs. The trunks
of them, rough-barked and purple below, red, smooth and
glistering above, shot up some thirty odd feet — straight as the
pillars of an ancient temple — before the branches, sweeping
outward and downward, met, making a whispering, living
canopy overhead, through which the sunshine fell in tremulous
shafts, upon the shining coats and gleaming harness of the
horses, upon Ormiston's clear-cut, bronzed face and upright
figure, and upon the even, straw-coloured gravel of the road
The said road is raised by about three feet above the level of
the land on either side. On the left, the self-sown firs grow
in close ranks. The ground below them is bare but for tus-
socks of coarse grass and ruddy beds of fallen fir needles. On
the right, the fir wood is broken by coppices of silver-stemmed
birches, and spaces of heather — that shows a purple-brown
against the gray of the reindeer moss out of which it springs.
Tits swung and frolicked among the tree-tops, and a jay flew
ofF noisily with a flash of azure wing-coverts and volley of
harsh discordant cries.

The rapid movement, the moist, pungent odour of the wood-
land, the rhythmical trot of the horses, the rattle of the splinter-
bar chains as the traces slackened going downhill, above all
the presence of the man beside him, were pleasantly stimula-
ting to Richard Calmady. The boy was still a prey to much
innocent enthusiasm. It appeared to him, watching Ormis-
ton's handling of the reins and whip, there was nothing this
man could not do, and do skilfully, yet all with the same easy
unconcern. Indeed, the present position was so agreeable to
him that Dickie's spirits would have risen to an unusual height,
but for a certain chastening of the flesh in the shape of the
occasional pressure of a broad strap against his middle, which
brought him unwelcome remembrance of recent discoveries it
was his earnest desire to ignore, still better to forget.

For just at starting there had been a rather bad moment.
Winter, having settled him on the seat of the dog-cart, was
preparing to tuck him in with many rugs, when Ormiston
said —

" Look here, dear old chap, I've been thinking about this,
and upon my word you don't seem to me very safe. You see
this is a diff^erent matter to your donkey-chair, or the pony-
tcarriage. There's no protection at the side, and if the horses

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 119

shied or anything — well, you'd be in the road. And I can't
afford to spill you the first time we go out together, or there'd
be a speedy end of all our fun."

Richard tried to emulate his uncle's cool indifference, and
take the broad strap as a matter of course. But he was glad
the tongue of the buckle slipped so directly into place ; and
that Henry's attention was engaged with the near horse, which
fretted at standing ; and that Leonard, the footman, was busy
making Camp jump up at the back ; and that his mother, who
had been watching him from the lowest of the wide steps,
turned away and went up to the flight to join Julius March
standing under the gray arcade. As the horses sprang forward,
clattering the little pebbles of the drive against the body of the
carriage, and swung away round the angle of the house,
Katherine came swiftly down the steps again smiling, kissing
her hand to him. Still, the strap hurt — not poor Dickie's
somewhat ill-balanced body, to which in truth it lent an agree-
able sense of security, but his, just then, all too sensitive mind.
So that, notwithstanding a fine assumption of gaiety, as he
kissed his hand in return, he found the dear vision of his
mother somewhat blurred by foolish tears which he had
resolutely to wink away.

But now that disquieting incident was left nearly ten min-
utes behind. The last park gate and its cluster of mellow-
tinted thatched cottages was past. Not only out-of-doors and
all the natural exhilaration of it, but the spectacle of the world
beyond the precincts of the park — into which world he, in
point of fact, so rarely penetrated — wooed him to interest and
enjoyment. To Dickie, whose life through his mother's
jealous tenderness and his own physical infirmity had been
.:;o singularly circumscribed, there was an element, slightly
pathetic, of discovery and adventure in this ordinary afternoon
drive.

He did not want to talk. He was too busy simply seeing,
everything food for those young eyes and brain so greedy of
incident and of beauty. He sat upright and stared at the pass-
ing show. — At the deep lane, its banks starred with primroses
growing in the hollows of the gnarled roots of oaks and ash
trees. At Sandyfield rectory, deep-roofed, bow-windowed,
the red walls and tiles of it half smothered in ivy and coton-
easter. At the low, squat-towered, Georgian church, standing

120 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

in Its acre of close-packed graveyard, which is shadowed by
yew trees and by the clump of three enormous Scotch firs in
the rectory garden adjoining. At the Church Farm, just be-
yond— a square white house, the slated roofs of it running up
steeply to a central block of chimneys, it having, in conse-
quence, somewhat the effect of a monster extinguisher. At
the rows of pale, wheat stacks, raised on granite straddles ; at
the prosperous barns, yards, and stables, built of wood on brick
foundations, that surround it, presenting a mass of rich, solid
colour and of noisy, crowded, animal life. At the fields, plough
and pasture, marked out by long lines of hedgerow trees,
broken by coppices — these dashed with tenderest green —
stretching up and back to the dark purple-blue range of the
moorland. At scattered cottages, over the gates of whose
gardens gay with daffodils and polyanthus, groups of little girls
and babies, in flopping sunbonnets and scanty lilac pinafores,
stared back at the passing carriage, and then bobbed the accus-
tomed curtsy. In the said groups were no boys, save of
infant years. The boys were away shepherding, or to plough,
or bird-minding. For as yet education was free indeed — in
the sense that you were free to take it, or leave it, as suited
your pocket and your fancy.

Richard stared too at the pleasant, furze-dotted commons,
spinning away to right and left as the horses trotted sharply
onward — commons whereon meditative donkeys endured rather
than enjoyed existence, after the manner of their kind ; and
prodigiously large families of yellow-gray goslings streeled
after the flocks of white geese, across spaces of fresh sprung
grass around shallow ponds, in which the blue and dapple of
the sky was reflected. He stared at Sandy field village too — a
straight street of detached houses, very diverse in colour and in
shape, standing back, for the most part, amid small orchards
and gardens that slope gently up from the brook, which last,
backed, here by a row of fine elms, there by one of Lombardy
poplars, borders the road. Three or four shops, modest in
size as they are ambitious in the variety of objects offered for
sale in them, advance their windows boldly. So does the
yellow-washed inn, the Calmady arms displayed upon its
swinging sign-board. A miller's tented waggon, all powdery
with flour, and its team of six horses, brave with brass harness
and bells, a timber-qarriage, and a couple of spring-carts, were

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 121:

drawn up on the half-moon of gravel before the porch j while^
from out the open door, came a sound of voices and odour of
many pipes and much stale beer.

And Richard had uninterrupted leisure to bestow on all this
seeing, for his companion. Colonel Ormiston, was preoccupied
and silent. Once or twice he looked down at the boy as
though suddenly remembering his presence and inquired if he
was " all right." But it was not until they had crossed the
long, white-railed bridge, at the end of Sandyfield street — which
spans not only the little brown river overhung by black-stemmed
alders, but a bit of marsh, reminiscent of the ancient ford^
lush with water grasses, beds of king-cups, and broad-leaved
docks — not until then did Colonel Ormiston make sustained
effort at conversation. Beyond the bridge the road forks.

" Left to Newlands, isn't it ? " he asked sharply.

Then, as the carriage swept round the turn, he woke up
from his long reverie ; waking Richard up also, from his long
dream of mere seeing, to human drama but dimly apprehended
close there at his side.

" Oh, well, well ! " the man exclaimed, throwing back his
head in sharp impatience, as a horse will against the restraint of
the bearing-rein. He raised his eyebrows, while his lips set in
a smile the reverse of gay. Then he looked down at Richard
again, an unwonted softness in his expression.

" Been happy ? " he said. " Enjoyed your drive ? That's
right. You understand the art of being really good company,.
Dick."

" What's that ? "

" Allowing other people to be just as bad company as they
like."

" I — I don't see how you could be bad company," Dickie
said, flushing at the audacity of his little compliment.

" Don't you, dear old chap ? Well, that's very nice of you.
All the same, I find, at times, I can be precious bad company
to myself."

"Oh ! but I don't see how," the boy argued, his enthusiasm
protesting against all possibility of default in the object of it.
Richard wanted to keep his hands down, — unconsciousness, if
only assumed, told for personal dignity — but in the agitation of
protest, spite of himself, he laid hold of the top edge of that
same chastening strap. " It must be so awfully jolly to be like

122 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

you — able to do everything and go everywhere. There must
be such a lot to think about."

The softness was still upon Ormiston's face. " Such a
lot ? " he said. " A jolly lot too much, believe me, very often,
Dick."

He looked away up the copse-bordered road, over the ears
of the trotting horses.

"You've read the story of Blue Beard and that unpleasant
locked-up room of his, where the poor little wives hung all of
a row ? Well, Pm sorry to say, Dick, most men when they
come to my age have a room of that sort. It's an inhospitable
place. One doesn't invite one's friends to dine and smoke
there. At least no gentleman does. I've met one or two
persons who set the door open and rather gloried in inviting
inspection — but they were blackguards and cads. They don't
count. Still each of us is obliged to go in there sometimes
himself. I tell you it's anything but lively. I've been in
there just now."

The dappled cloud creeping upward from the southern hori-
zon veiled the sun, the light of which grew pale and thin.
The scent of the larch wood, on the right, hung in the air.
Richard's eyes were wide with inquiry. His mind suffered
growing-pains, as young minds of any intellectual and poetic
worth needs must. The possibility of moral experience, in-
calculable in extent as that golden-gray outspread of creeping,
increasing vapour overhead, presented itself to him. The
vastness of life touched him to fear. He struggled to find a
limit, clothing his effort in childish realism of statement.

" But in that locked-up room. Uncle Roger, you can't have
dead women — dead wives."

Ormiston laughed quietly.

"You hit out pretty straight from the shoulder, master
Dick," he said. " Happily I can reassure you on one point.
All manner of things are hung up in there — some ugly — al-
most all ugly, now, to my eyes, though some of them had
charming ways with them once upon a time. But, I give you
my word, neither ugly nor charming, dead nor alive, are there
any wives."

The boy considered a moment, then said stoutly, " I
v/ouldn't go in there again. I'd lock the door and throw away
the key."

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 123:

" Walt till your time comes ! You'll find that is precisely
what you can't do."

" Then I'd fetch them out, once and for all, and bury them."

The carriage had turned in at the lodge gate. Soon a long,
lov/, white house and range of domed conservatories came into
view.

" Heroic remedies ! " Ormiston remarked, amused at the
boy's vehemence. " But no doubt they do succeed now and
then. To tell you the truth, Dick, I have been thinking of
something of the kind myself. Only I'm afraid I shall need
somebody to help me in carrying out so extensive a funeral."

"Anybody would be glad enough to help you," Richard
declared, with a strong emphasis on the pronoun.

" Ah ! but the bother is anybody can't help one. Only one
person in all this great rough and tumble of a world can really
help one. And often one finds out who that person is a little^
bit too late. However, here we are. Perhaps we shall know
more about It all in the next half hour, if these good people
are at home."

In point of fact the good people in question were not at
home. Ormiston, holding reins and whip in one hand, felt
for his card-case.

"So we've had our journey for nothing you see, Dick," he
said.

And to Richard the words sounded regretful. Moreover,,
the drama of this expedition seemed to him shorn of its
climax. He knew there should be something more, and
pushed for it.

"You haven't asked for Mary," he said. "And I thought
we came on purpose to see Mary. She won't like us to go
away like this. Do ask."

Colonel Ormiston's expression altered, hardened. And
Richard, in his present hypersensitive state, remembered the
cool scrutiny bestowed on the winged sea-gull of his dream last
night. This man had seemed so near him just now, while
they talked. Suddenly he became remote again, all under-
standing of him shut away by that slight insolence of bearing.
Still he did as Richard prayed him. Miss. Cathcart was at
home. She had just come in from riding.

" Tell her Sir Richard Calmady is here,, aad would like, if:
he may, to see her."

ra4 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Without waiting for a reply, Ormiston unbuckled that same
chastening strap silently, quickly. He got down and, coming
round to the farther side of the carriage, lifted Richard out ;
while Camp, who had jumped off the back seat, stood yawn-
ing, whining a little, shaking his heavy head and wagging his
tail in welcome on the door-step. With the bull-dog close at
his heels, Ormiston carried the boy into the house.

The inner doors were open, and, up the long, narrow,
pleasantly fresh-tinted drawing-room, Mary Cathcart came to
meet them. The folds of her habit were gathered up in one
hand. In the other she carried a bunch of long-stalked,
yellow and scarlet tulips. Her strong, supple figure stood out
against the young green of the lawns and shrubberies, seen
through the French windows behind her. She walked care-
fully, with a certain deliberation, thanks to her narrow habit
and top-boots. The young lady carried her thirty-one years
bravely. Her irregular features and large m.outh had always
hcen open to criticism. But her teeth, when her lips
parted, were white and even, and her brown eyes frankly hon-
est as ever.

" Why, Dickie dear, it is simply glorious to have you and
Camp paying visits on your own account." — Her speech broke
into a little cry, while her fingers closed so tightly on the
tulips that the brittle stalks snapped, and the gay-coloured
bells of them hung limply, some falling on to the carpet about
her feet. " Roger — Colonel Ormiston — I didn't know you
were home — were here ! " Her voice was uncontrollably
glad.

Still carrying the boy, Ormiston stood before her, observing
her keenly. But he was no longer remote. His insolence,
which, after all, may have been chiefly self-protective, had
vanished.

" I'm very sorry — I mean for those poor tulips. I came to
pay my respects to Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart, and not finding

them was preparing to drive humbly home again But "

Certainly she carried her years well. She looked absurdly
young. The brown and rose-red of her complexion was
clear as that of the little maiden who had fought with, and
overcome, and kissed the rough Welsh pony refusing the
grip by the roadside long ago. The hint of a moustache em-
phasised the upturned corners of her mouth — but that was

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 125

rather captivating. Her eyes danced, under eyelids which
fluttered for the moment. She was not beautiful, not a woman
to make men run mad. Yet the comeliness of her body, and
the spirit to which that body served as index, was so unmis-
takably healthful, so sincere, that surely no sane man, once
gathering her into his arms, need ask a better blessing. —
" But," Ormiston went on, still watching her, " nothing would
satisfy Dick but he must see you. With many injunctions
regarding his safety, Katherine made him over to me for the
afternoon. I'm on duty, you see. Where he goes, I'm bound
to go also — even to the destruction of your poor tulips."

Miss Cathcart made no direct answer.

" Sit here, Dickie," she said, pointing to a sofa.

" But you don't really mind our coming in, do you ? " he
asked, rather anxiously.

The young lady placed herself beside him, drew^ his hand
on to her knee, patted it gently.

" Mind ? No ; on the whole, I don't think I do mind very-
much. In fact, I think I should probably have minded very
much more if you had gone away without asking for me."

" There, I told you so. Uncle Roger," the boy said tri-
umphantly. Camp had jumped up on to the sofa too. He
put his arm comfortably around the dog's neck. It was as.
well to acquire support on both sides, for the surface of the
glazed chintz was slippery, inconveniently unsustaining to his.
equilibrium. " It's an awfully long time since I've seerk
Mary," he continued, " more than three weeks."

" Yes, an awfully long time," Ormiston echoed, " more
than six years."

" Dear Dickie," she said ; " how pretty of you ! Do you
always keep count of my visits ? "

" Of course I do. They were about the best things that
ever happened, till Uncle Roger came home."

Forgetting herself, Mary Cathcart raised her eyes to Ormis-
ton's in appeal. The boy's little declaration stirred all the
latent motherhood in her. His fortunes at once passed so very-
far beyond, and fell so far short of, the ordinary lot. She
wondered whether, and could not but trust that, this old
friend and newcomer was not too self-centred, too hardened
by ability and success to appreciate the intimate pathos of the
position. Ormiston read and answered her thought.

126 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Oh ! we are going to do something to change all that," he
said confidently. *' We are going to enlarge our borders a bit;
aren't we, Dick ? Only, I think, we should manage matters
much better if Miss Cathcart would help us, don't you ? "

Richard remembering the locked-up room of evil contents
and that proposal of inclusive funeral rites, gave this utterance
a wholly individual application. His face grew bright with
intelligence. But, greatly restraining himself, he refrained
from speech. All that had been revealed to him in confidence,
and so his honour was engaged to silence.

Ormiston pulled forward a chair and sat down by him, lean-
ing forward, his hands clasped about one knee, while he gazed
at the tulips scattered on the floor.

" So tell Miss Cathcart we all want her to come over to
Brockhurst just as often as she can," he continued, " and help
us to make the wheels go round a little faster. Tell her we've
grown very old, and discreet, and respectable, and that we are
absolutely incapable of doing or saying anything foolish ot
naughty, which she would object to — and "

But Richard could restrain himself no longer. "Why
don't you tell her yourself. Uncle Roger ? "

" Because, my dear old chap, a burnt child fears the fire.
I tried to tell Miss Cathcart something once, long ago. She
mayn't remember "

" She does remember," Mary said quietly, looking down at
Richard's hand and patting it as it lay on her lap.

" But she stopped me dead," Ormiston went on. " It v/as
quite right of her. She gave the most admirable reasons for
stopping me. Would you care to hear them ? "

" Oh ! don't, pray don't," Mary murmured. " It is not
generous."

" Pardon me, your reasons were absolutely just — true in
substance and in fact. You said I was a selfish, good-for-
nothing spendthrift, and so "

" I was odious," she broke in. " I was a self-righteous
little Pharisee — forgive me "

"Why — there's nothing to forgive. You spoke the truth."

" I don't believe it," Richard cried, in vehement protest.

" Dickie, you're a darling," Mary Cathcart said.

Colonel Ormiston left off nursing his knee, and leaned a
iittle further forward.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 127

ii

Well then, will you come over to Brockhurst very often,,
and help us to make the wheels go round, and cheer us all up,.
and do us no end of good, though — I am a selfish, good-for-
nothing spendthrift ? You see I run through the list of my
titles again to make sure this transaction is fair and square and
above-board."

A silence followed, which appeared to Richard protracted
to the point of agitation. He became almost distressingly
conscious of the man's still, bronzed, resolute face on the one
hand, of the woman's mobile, vivid, yet equally resolute face
on the other, divining far more to be at stake than he had
clear knowledge of. Tired and excited, his impatience
touched on anger.

" Say yes, Mary," he cried impulsively, '^ say yes. I don't
see how anybody can want to refuse Uncle Roger any-
thing."

Miss Cathcart's eyes grew moist. She turned and kissed
the boy.

" I don't think — perhaps — Dickie, that I quite see either,"
she answered very gently.

" Mary, you know what you've just said ? " Ormiston's
tone was stern. " You understand this little comedy ? It
means business. This time you've got to go the whole hog
or none."

She looked straight at him, and drew her breath in a long
haif-laughing sigh.

" Oh, dear me ! what a plague of a hurry you are in ! "
she said. " Well — then — then — I suppose I must — it is
hardly a graceful expression, but it is of your choosing, not
of mine — I suppose I must go the whole hog."

Roger Ormiston rose, treading the fallen tulips under foot.
And Richard, watching him, beheld that which called to his
remembrance, not the hopeless and impotent battle under the
black polished sky of his last night's dream, but the gallant
stories he had heard, earlier last night, of the battles of
Sobraon and Chillianwallah, of the swift dangers of sport, and
large daring of travel. Here he beheld — so it seemed to his
boyish thought — the aspect of a born conqueror, of the man
who can serve and wait long for the good he desires, and who
winning it, lays hold of it with fearless might. And this,
while causing Richard an exquisite delight of admiration.

128 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

caused him also a longing to share those splendid powers so
passionate that it amounted to actual pain.

Mary Cathcart's hand slid from under his hand. She too
rose to her feet.

^^ Then you have actually cared for me all along, all these
years," Ormiston declared in fierce joy.

" Of course — who else could I care for ? And — and —
you've loved me, Roger, all the while ? "

And Ormiston answered " Yes," — speaking the truth,
though with a difference. There had been interludes that had
contributed somewhat freely to the peopling of that same
locked-up room. But it is possible for a man to love many
times, yet always love one woman best.

Ail this, however, Dickie did not know. He only knew
they dazzled him — the man triumphantly strong, the woman
so bravely glad. He could not watch them any longer. He
went hot all over, and his heart beat. He felt strangely deso-
late too. They were far away from him in thought, in fact,
though so close by. Dickie shut his eyes, put his arms round
the bull-dog, pressed his face hard against the faithful beast's
shoulder ; while Camp, stretching his short neck to the utter-
most, nuzzled against him and essayed to lick his cheek.

Thus did Richard Calmady gain yet further knowledge of
things as they are.

CHAPTER IV

WHICH SMELLS VERY VILELY OF THE STABLE

A PRIL softened into May, and the hawthorns were in
blossom before Richard passed any other very note-
ivorthy milestone on the road of personal development.
Then, greatly tempted, he committed a venial sin ; received
;prompt and coarse chastisement ; and, by means of the said
chastisement, as is the merciful way of the Eternal Justice,
found unhoped of emancipation.

It happened thus. As the spring days grew warm Made-
moiselle de Mirancourt failed somewhat. The darkness and
penetrating chill of the English winter tried her, and this year

lliE BREAKING OF DRPIAMS 129

her recuperative powers seemed sadly deficient. A fuller tide
of life had pulsed through Brockhurst since Colonel Ornfiis-
ton's arrival. The old stillness was departing, the old order
changing. With that change Mademoiselle de Mirancourt
had no quarrel, since, to her serene faith, all that came must,
of necessity, come through a divine ordering and in conform*
ity to a divine plan. Yet this more of activity and of move-
ment strained her. The weekly drive over to Westchurch, to
hear mass at the humble Catholic chapel tucked away in a side
street, sorely taxed her strength. She returned fortified, her
soul ravished by that heavenly love, which, in pure and inno-
cent natures, bears such gracious kinship to earthly love. Yet
in body she was outworn and weary. On such occasions
she would rally Julius March, not without a touch of malice,
saying : —

" Ah ! trh cher ami^ had you only followed the ever blessed
footsteps of those dear Oxford friends of yours and entered
the fold of the true Church, what fatigue might you not now
spare me — let alone the incalculable advantages to your own
poor, charming, fatally darkened soul ! "

While Julius — who, though no less devout than of yore,
was happily less fastidiously sensitive — would reply : —

" But, dearest lady, had I followed the footsteps of my
Oxford friends, remember I should not be at Brockhurst at all."

" Clearly, then, everything is well ordered," she would say,
folding her fragile hands upon her embroidery frame, " since
it Is altogether impossible we could do without you. Yet I
regret for your soul. It is so capable of receiving illumina-
tion. You English — even the most finished among you — re-
main really deplorably stubborn, and nevertheless it is my fate
perpetually to set my affections upon one or other of you."

It followed that Katherine devoted much of her time to
Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, walked slowly beside her up and
down the sunny, garden paths sheltered by the high, red walls
whereon the clematis and jasmine began to show for flower ;
or took her for quiet, little drives within the precincts of the
park. They spoke much of Lucia St. Quentin, of Katherine's
girlhood, and of those pleasant days In Paris long ago. And
this brought soothing and comfort, not only to the old lady,
but to the young lady also — and of soothing and comfort the
latter stood in need just now.

130 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

For it is harsh discipline even to a noble woman, whose life
is still strong in her, to stand by an^ see another woman but a
tew years her junior entering on those joys which she has lost,
— marriage, probably motherhood as well. Roger Ormiston's
and Mary Cathcart's love-making was restrained and dignified.
But the very calm of their attitude implied a security of happi-
ness passing all need of advertisement. And Katherine was
very far from grudging them this. She was not envious, still
less jealous. She did not want to take anything of theirs ; but
she wanted, she sorely wanted, her own again. A word, a
look, a certain quickness of quiet laughter, would pierce her
with recollection. Once for her too, below the commonplaces
of daily detail, flowed that same magic river of delight. But
the springs of it had gone dry. Therefore it was a relief
to be alone with Mademoiselle de Mirancourt — virgin and saint
— and to speak with her of the days before she had sounded the
lovely depths of that same magic flood — days when she had
known of its existence only by the mirage, born of the dazzle
of its waters, which plays over the innocent vacant spaces of a
young girl's mind.

It was a relief even, though of sterner quality, to go mto the
red drawing-room on the ground floor and pace there, her hands
clasped behind her, her proud head bowed, by the half hour
together. If personal joy is dead past resurrection, there is
bitter satisfaction in realising to the full personal pain. The
room was duly swept, dusted, casements set open to welcome
breeze and sunshine, fires lighted in the grate. But no one
ever sat there. It knew no cheerfulness of social intercourse.
The crimson curtains and covers had become faded. They
were not renewed. The furniture, save for the absence of the
narrow bed, stood in precisely the same order as on the night
when Sir Richard Calmady died. It was pushed back against
the walls. And in the wide empty way between the two doors,
Katherine paced, saturating all her being with thoughts of that
which was, and must remain, wholly and inalienably her own —
namely, her immense distress.

And in this she took the more comfort, because something
else, until now appearing wholly her own, was slipping a little
away from her. Dickie's health had improved notably in the
last few weeks. His listlessness had vanished, while his cheeks
showed a wholesome warmth of colour. But his cry was ever,

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 131

** Mother, Uncle Roger's going to such a place. He says
he'll take me. I can go, can't I?" Or, "Mother, Mary's
going to do such a thing. She says she'll show me how. She
may, mayn't she ? " And Katherinc's answer was always
^^ Yes." She grudged the boy none of his new-found
pleasures, rejoiced indeed to see him interested and gay. Yet
to watch the new broom, which sweeps so clean, is rarely
exhilarating to those that have swept diligently with the old
one. The nest had held her precious fiedgling so safely till
now ; and this fluttering of wings, eager for flight, troubled her
somewhat. Not only was Dickie's readiness to be away from
her a trifle hard to bear ; but she knew that disappointment, of
a certainty, lay in wait for him, and that e^.ch effort towards
wider action would but reveal to him how circumscribed his
powers actually were.

Meanwhile, however, Richard enjoyed himself recklessly,
almost feverishly, in the attempt to disprove the teaching of
that ugly dream, and keep truth at bay. There had been
further drives, and the excitement of witnessing a forest fire— -
only too frequent in the Brockhurst country when the sap is
up, and the easterly wind and May sun have scorched all
moisture from the surface of the moorland. He and Mary had
bumped over fir roots and scuttled down bridle-paths in the
pony-carriage, to avoid the rush of flame and smoke ; had
skirmished round at a hand gallop, in search of recruits to
reinforce Ormiston, and lies, and a small army of beaters,
battling against the blazing line that threatened destruction to
the fir avenue. Now and again, with a mighty roar, which
sent Dickie's heart into his mouth, great tongues of flame,
clear as topaz and ruby in the steady sunshine, would leap
upwards, converting a whole tall fir into a tree of fire, while
the beaters runnmg back, grimed with smoke and sweat, took
a moment's breathing-space in the open.

There had been more peaceful pastimes as well — several days'
fishing, enchanting beyond the power of language to describe.
The clear trout-stream meandering through the rich water-
meadows *, the herds of cattle standing knee-deep in the grass,
Ir.zily chewing the cud and switching their tails at the cloud of
flrcs ; the birds and wild creatures haunting the streamside ; the
long dreamy hours of gentle sport, had opened up to Dickie a
whole new world of romance. His donkey-chair had been left

132 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

at the yellow-washed mill beneath the grove of silvery-leaved,
ever-rustling, balsam poplars. And thence, while Ormiston
and Mary sauntered slowly on ahead, the men — Winter in
mufti, oblivious of plate-cleaning and cellarage, and the onerous
duties of his high estate. Stamp, the water-bailiff, and Moor-
cock, one of the under-keepers — had carried him across the
great green levels. Winter was an old and tried friend, and it
was somewhat diverting to behold him in this novel aspect,
affable and chatty with inferiors, displaying, moreover,
unexpected knowledge in the mysteries of the angler's craft.
The other two men — sharp-featured, their faces ruddy as
summer apples, merry-eyed, clad in velveteen coats, that bulged
about the pockets, and wrinkled leather gaiters reaching half-
way up the thigh — charmed Richard, when his first shyness
was passed. They were eager to please him. Their talk was
racy. Their laughter ready and sincere. Did not Stamp point
out to him a water-ouzel, with impudently jerking tail, dipping
and wading in the shallows of the stream ? Did not Moor-
cock find him a water-raiPs nest, hidden in a tuft of reeds and
grass, with ten, yellowish, speckled eggs in it ? And did not
both men pluck him handfuls of cowslips, of tawny-pink avens,
and of mottled, snake-headed fritillaries, and stow them away
in the fishing-baskets above the load of silver-and-red spotted
trout ?

Mary had protested Dickie could throw a fly, if he had a
light enough rod. And not only did he throw a fly, but at the
fourth or fifth cast a fish rose, and he played it — with skirling
reel and much advice and most complimentary excitement on
the part of the whole good company — and brought it skilfully
within range of Stamp's landing-net. Never surely was trout
spawned that begot such bliss in the heart of an angler ! As,
with panting sides and open gills, this three-quarter-pound
treasure of treasures flopped about on the sunny stream bank
all the hereditary instinct of sport spoke up clearly in Dickie.
The boy — such is youthful masculine human nature — believed
he understood at last why the world was made ! At dressing-
time he had his sacred fish carried on a plate up to his room to
show Clara ; and, but for strong remonstrance on the part of that
devoted handmaiden, would have kept it by his bedside all night,
so as to assure himself at intervals, by sense of touch — let alone
that of smell — of the adorable fact of its veritable existence.

THE BREAKING OF DREAxMS 133

But all this, Inspiring though it was, served but as prelude
to a more profoundly coveted acquaintance — that with the
racing-stable. For it was after this last that Dickie still
supremely longed — the more so, It is to be feared, because it
was, if not explicitly, yet implicitly forbidden. A spirit of
defiance had entered into him. Being granted the inch, he
was disposed to take the ell. And this, not in conscious
: opposition to his mother's will; but In protest, not uncou-
rageous, against the limitations imposed on him by physical
misfortune. The boy's blood was up, and consequently, with
greater pluck than discretion, he struggled against the Intimate,
inalienable enemy that so marred his fate. And it was this
not ignoble effort which culminated in disobedience.

For driving back one afternoon, later than usual, — Ormlston
had met them, and Mary and he had taken a by-path home
through the v/oods, — the pony-carriage, turned along the high
level road beside the lake, going eastward, just as the string of
race-horses, coming home from exercise, passed along it coming
west. Richard was driving, Chaplin, the second coachman,
sitting In the dickey at the back of the low carriage. He
checked the pony, and his eyes took In the whole scene — the
blue-brown expanse of the lake dotted with vi^ater-fowl, on
the one hand, the immense blue-brown landscape on the other,
ranging away to the faint line of the chalk downs in the
south ; the downward slope of the park, to the great square of
red stable buildings In the hollow ; the horses coming slowly
towards him In single file. Cawing rooks streamed back from
the fallow-fields across the valley. Thrushes and blackbirds
carolled. A wren, in the bramble brake close by, broke into
sharp sweet song. The recurrent ring of an axe came from
somewhere away In the fir plantations, and the strident rasping
of a saw from the wood-yard in the beech grove near the house.

Richard stared at that oncoming procession. Half-way
bctv/een him and the foremost of the horses the tan ride
branched off, and wound down the hillside to the stables. The
boy set his teeth. He arrived at a desperate decision, —
touched up the pony, drove on.

Chaplin leaned forward, addressing him, over the back of
the seat.

" Better wait here, hadn't we, Sir Richard ? They'll turn
off in a minute."

134 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Richard did not look round. He tried to answer coldly,
but his voice shook.

" I know. That's why I am going on."

There was a silence save for the cawing of the rooks, ring
of the axe, and grinding of wheels on the gravel. Chaplin,
responsible, correct, over five-and-thirty, and fully intending
to succeed old Mr. Wenham, the head coachman, on the
latter's impending retirement from active service, went very
red in the face.

" Excuse me, but I have my orders, Sir Richard," he said.

Dickie still looked straight ahead.

"Very well," he answered, "then perhaps you'd better get
out and walk on home."

"You know I'm bound not to leave you, sir," the man said.

Dickie laughed a little in uncontrollable excitement. He
was close to them now. The leading horse was just moving
off the main road, its shadow lying long across the turf. How
was it possible to give way with the prize within reach ? —
"You can go or stay Chaplin, as you please. I mean to speak
to Chifnev. I — I mean to see the stables."

"It's as much as my place is worth, sir."

" Oh ! bother your place ! " the boy cried impetuously. —
Dear heart alive, how fine they were as they filed by ! That
chestnut filly, clean made as a deer, her ears laid back as she
reached at the bit; and the brown, just behind her — "I
mean, I mean you needn't be afraid, Chaplin — I'll speak to
her ladyship. I'll arrange all that. Go to the pony's head."

At the end of the long string of horses came the trainer — a
square-built, short-necked man, sanguine complexioned and
clean shaven. Of hair, indeed, Mr. Chifney could only boast
a rim of carroty-gray stubble under the rim of the back of his
hard hat. His right eye had suffered damage, and the pupil
of it was white and viscous. His lips were straight and pur-
plish in colour. He raised his hat and would have followed
on down the slope, but Dickie called to him.

As he rode up an unwonted expression came over Mr.
Chifney's shrewd, hard-favoured face. He took off his hat
and sat there, bare-headed \\\ the sunshine, looking down at
the boy, his hand on his hip.

"Good-day, Sir Richard," he said. " Anything I can d©
for vou ? "

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 135

" Yes, yes," Dickie stammered, all his soul in his eyes, his
cheeks aflame, "you .:an do just what I want most. Tarke
me down, Chifney, and show me the horses."

Here Chaplin coughed discreetly behind his hand. But
that proved of small avail, save possibly in the way of provoca-
tion. For socially between the racing and house stables was a
great gulf fixed ; and Mr. Chifney could hardly be exp:icted to
recognise the existence of a man in livery standing at a pony's
head, still less to accept direction from such a person. Servants
must be kept in their place — impudent, lazy enough lot any-
how, bless you ! On his feet the trainer had been known to
decline to moments of weakness. But in the saddle, a good
horse under him, he possessed unlimited belief in his own
judgment, fearing neither man, devil, nor even his own meek-
faced wife with pink ribbons in her cap. Moreover, he felt
such heart as he had go out strangely to the beautiful, eager
boy gazing up at him.

" Nothing 'ud give me greater pleasure in life, Sir Richard,"
he said, " if you're free to come. We've waited a long time,
a precious long time, sir, for you to come down and take a
look at your horses."

" I'd have been to see them sooner. I'd have given any-
thing to see them. I've never had the chance, somehow."

Chifney pursed up his lips, and surveyed the distant land-
scape with a very meaning glance. " I dare say not. Sir Rich-
ard. But better late than never, you know; and so, if you
are free to come "

Again Chaplin coughed.

" Free to come ? Of course I am free to come," Dickie
asserted, his pride touched to arrogance. And Mr. Chifney
looked at him, an approving twinkle in his sound eye.

" I agree, Sir Richard. Quite right, sir, you're free, of
course."

Stolen waters are sweet, says the proverb. And to Richard
Calmady, his not wholly legitimate experience of the next
hour was sweet indeed. For there remains rich harvest of
poetry in all sport worth the name, let squeamish and senti-
mental persons declaim against it as they may. Strength and
endurance, disregard of suffering have a permanent appeal and
value, even in their coarsest manifestations. No doubt the
noble gentlemen of the neighbourhood, who "lay at Brock-

136 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

hurst two nights *' on the occasion of Sir DenzePs historic
house-warming, to witness the mighty bear-baiting, were
sensible of something more in that somewhat disgustino; ex-
hibition, than the mere gratification of brutal instincts, the
mere savage relish for wounds and pain and blood. And to
Sir Denzel's latest descendant the first sight of the training-
stable — as the pony-carriage came to a standstill alongside the
grass plot in the centre of the great, graveled square — offered
very definite and stirring poetry of a kind.

On three sides the quadrangle was shut in by one-storied,
brick buildings, the woodwork of doors and windows immacu-
late with white paint. Behind, over the wide archway, —
closed fortress-like by heavy doors at night, — were the head-
lad's and helpers' quarters. On either side, forge and weigh-
ing-room, saddler's and doctor's shop. To right and left a
range of stable doors, with round swing-lights between each ;
and, above these, the windows of hay and straw lofts and of
the boys' dormitories. In front were the dining-rooms and
kitchens, and the trainer's house — a square clock tower, carry-
ing an ornate gilt vane, rising from the cluster of red roofs.
Twenty years had weathered the raw of brick walls, and
painted the tiling with all manner of orange and rusty-
coloured lichens ; yet the whole place was admirably spick and
span, free of litter. Many cats, as Dickie noted, meditated
in sunny corners, or prowled in the open with truly official
composure. Over all stretched a square of bluest sky, crossed
by a skein of homeward-wending rooks. While above the
roofs, on either side the archway, the high-lying lands of the
park showed up, broken, here and there, by clumps of trees.

Mr. Chifney slipped out of the saddle. — " Here boy, take
my horse," he shouted to a little fellow hurrying across the
yard. " I'm heartily glad to see you. Sir Richard," he went
on. " Now, if you care, as your father's son can't very well
be ofF carine, for horses "

If I care ! " echoed Dickie, his eyes following the grace-
ful chestnut filly as she was led in over the threshold of her
stable.

" I like that. That'll do. Chip of the old block after all,'*
the trainer said, with evident relish. "Well then, since you
do care for horses as you ought to. Sir Richard, we'll just make
you fre^ of this establishment. About the most first-class

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 137

private establishment in England, sir, though I say it that have
run the concern pretty well single-handed for the best part of
the last fifteen years — make you free of it right away, sir.
And, look you, when you've got hold, don't you leave
hold."

" No, I won't," Dickie said stoutly.

Mr. Chifney was in a condition of singular emotion, as he
wrapped Richard's rug about him and bore him away into the
stables. He even went so far as to swear a little under his
breath ; and Chifney was a very fairly clean-mouthed man,
unless members of his team of twenty and odd naughty boys
got up to some devilry with their charges. He carried Rich-
ard as tenderly as could any woman, while he tramped from
stall to stall, loose-box to loose-box, praising his racers, calling
attention to their points, recounting past prowess, or prophesy-
ing future victories.

And the record was a fine one; for good luck had clung to
the masterless stable, as Lady Calmady's bank-books and
ledgers could testify.

"Vinedresser by Red Burgundy out of Valeria — won two
races at the Newmarket Spring Meeting the year before last.
Lamed himself somehow in the horse-box coming back — did
nothing for eighteen months — hope to enter him for some of
the autumn events." — Then later : — " Sahara, by North Afri-
can out of Sally-in-our-Alley. Beautiful mare ? I believe you,
Sir Richard. Why she won the Oaks for you. Jack White
was up. Pretty a race as ever I witnessed, and cleverly nd-
<len. Like to go up to her in the stall ? She's as quiet as a
Iamb. Catch hold of her head, boy."

And so Dick found himself seated on the edge of the manger,
the trainer's arm round him, and the historic Sahara snuffing at
his jacket pockets.

Then they crossed the quadrangle to inspect the colts and
£llies, where glories still lay ahead.

"Verdigris by Copper King out of Valeria again. And if
he doesn't make a name I'll never judge another horse, sir.
Strain of the old Touchstone blood there. Rather ugly ?
Yes, they're often a bit ugly that lot, but devilish good uns to
go. You ask Miss Cathcart about them. Never met a lady
who'd as much knowledge as she has of a horse. The Baby,
by Punch out of Lady Bountiful. Not much good, I'm afraid.

138 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

No grip, you see, too contracted in the hoofs. Chloroform by
Sawbones out of sister to Castinette."

And so forth, an endless repetition of genealogies, com-
ments, anecdotes to which Dickie lent most attentive ear. He
was keen to learn, his attention was on the stretch. He was
in process of initiation, and every moment of the sacred rites
came to him with power and value. Yet it must be owned
that he found the lessening of the strain on his memory and
attention not wholly unwelcome when Mr. Chifney, sitting
beside him on the big, white-painted cornbin opposite Diplo-
macy's loose-box, began to tell him of the old times when he
— a little fellow of eight to ten years of age — had been among
the boys in his cousin, Sam Chifney's famous stable at New-
market. Of the long, weary traveling before the days of rail-
ways, when the horses were walked by highroad and country
lane, ankle deep in mud, from Newmarket to Epsom ; and
after victory or defeat, walked by slow stages all the way home
again. Of how, later, he had migrated to Doncaster ; but, not
liking the "Yorkshire tykes," had got taken on in some well-
known stables upon the Berkshire downs.

" And it was there. Sir Richard," he said, " I met your
father, and we fancied each other from the first. And he
asked me to come to him. These stables were just building
then. And here I've been ever since."

Mr. Chifney stared down at the clean red quarries of the
stable floor, and tapped his neat gaiters with the switch he held
in his hand.

" Rum places, racing stables," he went on, meditatively ;
" and a lot of rum things go on in 'em, one way and another,
as you'll come to know. And it ain't the easiest thing going,
I tell you, to keep your hands clean. Ungrateful business a
trainer's. Sir Richard — wearing business — shortens a man's
temper and makes him old before his time. Out by four
o'clock on summer mornings, minding your cattle and keeping
your eye on those shirking blackguards of boys. No real rest,
sir, day or night. Wearing business — studying all the meet-
ings and entering your horses where you've reason to reckon
they've most chance. And if your horse wins, the jockey
gets all the praise and the petting. And if it fails the trainer
gets all the blame. Yes, it's wearing work. But, confound
it all, sir," he broke out hotly, '^ there's nothing like it on the

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 139

face of God's earth. Horses — horses — horses — why the very
smell of the bedding's sweeter than a bunch of roses. Love
'em ? I believe you. And you'll love 'em too before you've
done."

He turned and gripped Dickie h2rd by the shoulder.

*' For we'll make a thorough-paced sportsman of you yet,
Sir Richard," he said, "God bless you — danged if we don't."

Which assertion Mr. Chifney repeated at frequent intervals
over his grog that evening, as he sat, not in the sm.art dining-
room hung round with portraits of Vinedresser and Sahara and
other equine notabilities, but in the snug, little, back parlour
looking out on to the yai-d. Mrs. Chifney was a gentle, pious
woman, with whom her husband's profession went somewhat
against the grain. She would have preferred a nice grocery,
or other respectable, uneventful business in a country town,
and dissipation in the form of prayer rather than of race-meet-
ings. But as a slender, slightly self-righteous, young maiden
she had fallen very honestly and completely in love with Tom
Chifney. So there was nothing for it but to marry him and
regard the horses as her appointed cross. She nursed the boys
when they were sick or injured, intervened fairly successfully
between their poor, little backs and her husband's all-too-ready
ash stick; and assisted Julius March in promoting their spir-
itual welfare, even while deploring that the latter put his faith
in forms and ceremonies rather than in saving grace. Upon
the trainer himself she exercised a gently repressive influence.

" We won't swear, Mr. Chifney," she remarked mildly
now.

" Swear ! It's enough to make the whole bench of bishops
swear to see that lad."

" I did see him," Mrs. Chifney observed.

^' Yes, out of window. But you didn't carry him round,
and hear him talk — knowledgeable talk as you could ask from
one of his age. And watch his face — as like as two peas to
his father's."

" But her ladyship's eyes," put in Mrs. Chifney.

'' I don't know whose eyes they are, but I know he can use
'em. It was as pretty as a picture to see how he took it all."

Chifney tossed off the remainder of his tumbler of brandy
and water at a gulp.

" Swear," he repeated, " I could find it in my heart to swear

140 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

like hell. But I can find it in my heart to do more than that.
I can forgive her ladyship. By all that's "

" Thomas, forgiveness and oaths don't go suitably together.'*

" Well, but I can though, and I tell you, I do," he said
solemnly. " I forgive her. — Shoot the Clown ! by G — ! I
beg your pardon, Maria ; — but upon my soul, once or twice^
when I had him in my arms to-day, I felt I could have under-
stood it if she'd had every horse shot that stood in the stable."

He held the tumbler up against the lamp. But it was quite
empty.

" Uncommon glad she didn't though, poor lady, all the
same," he added, parenthetically, as he set it down on the table
again. " What do you say, Maria — about time we toddled off
to bed ? "

CHAPTER V

IN WHICH DICKIE IS INTRODUCED TO A LITTLE DANCER WITH
BLUSH-ROSES IN HER HAT

" IITER ladyship's inquired for you more than once, sir.'"
This from Winter meeting the pony-carriage and the
returning prodigal at the bottom of the steps.

The sun was low. Across the square lawn — whereon the
Clown had found death some thirteen years before — peacocks
led home their hens and chicks to roost within the two sex-
agonal, pepper-pot summer-houses that fill in the angles of the
red-walled enclosure. The pea-fowl stepped mincingly, high-
shouldered, their heads carried low, their long necks undulating
with a self-conscious grace. Dickie's imagination was aglow
like that rose-red sunset sky. The virile sentiment of all just
heard and seen, and the exultation of admitted ownership were
upon him. He felt older, stronger, more secure of himself
than ever before. He proposed to go straight to his mother
and confess. In his present mood he entertained no fear but
that she would understand.

" Is Lady Calmady alone ? " he asked.

" Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart are with her. Sir Richard."'
Winter leant down, loosening the rug. His usual, undemon-

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 141

strative speech took on a loftiness of tone. " Mrs. William
Ormiston and her daughter have driyen over with Mrs.
Cathcart." — The butler was not without remembrance of that
dinner on the day following Dickie's birth. Socially he had
never considered Lady Calmady's sister-in-law quite up to the
Brockhurst level.

Richard leaned back, watching the mincing peacocks. It
was so fair here out of doors. The scent of the may hung in
the air. The flame of the sunset bathed the facade of the
stately house. No doubt it would be interesting to see new
people, new relations; but he really cared to see no one just
now, except his mother. From her he wanted to receive ab-
solution, so that, his conscience relieved of the burden of his
disobedience, he might revel to the full in the thought of the
inheritance upon which — so it seemed to him — he had to-day
entered. Still, in his present humour, Dickie's sense of
noblesse oblige was strong.

"I suppose Tve got to go in and help entertain everybody,"
he remarked.

" Her ladyship'll think something's wrong, Sir Richard, and
'be anxious if you stay away."

The boy held out his arms. " All right then. Winter," he
said.

Here Chaplin again gave that admonitory cough. Richard,
his face hardening to slight scorn, looked at him over the but-
ler's shoulder.

" Oh ! You need not be uneasy, Chaplin. When I say
ril do a thing, I don't forget."

Which brief speech caused the butler to reflect, as he bore
the boy across the hall and up-stairs, that Sir Richard was
coming to have an uncommonly high manner about him, at
times, considering his age.

An unwonted loudness of conversation filled the Chapel-
Room. It was filled also by the rose-red light of the sunset
streaming in through the curve of the oriel-window. This
confused and dazzled Richard slightly, entering upon it
from the silence and sober clearness of the stair-head. A
shrill note of laughter. — Mr. Cathcart's voice saying, " I felt
it incumbent upon me to object. Lady Calmady. I spoke
very plainly to p'allowfeild." — Julius March's delicately refined
tones, " I am afraid spirituality is somewhat deficient in that

142 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

case." — Then the high flute-like notes of a child, rising clearly
above the general murmur, *'''Jh ! enfin — le voila^ Maman.
C*est b'len lui^ rC est-ce pas?'*^ And with that, Richard was
aware of a sudden hush falling upon the assembled company.
He was sensible every one watched him as Winter carried him
across the room and set him down in the long, low armchair
near the fireplace. Poor Dickie's self-consciousness, which
had been so agreeably in abeyance, returned upon him, and
a red, not of the sunset, dyed his face. But he carried his
head proudly. He thought of Chifney and the horses. He
refused to be abashed.

And Ormiston, breaking the silence, called to him cheerily : —

" Hello, old chap, what have you been up to ? You gave
Mary and me the slip."

" I know I did," the boy answered bravely. " How d'y^
do, Mrs. Cathcart ? " as the latter nodded and smiled to him
— a large, gentle, comfortable lady, uncertain in outline^
thanks to voluminous draperies of black silk and black lace.
" How d'ye do, sir ? " this to Mr. Cathcart — a tall, neatly-
made man, but for a slight roundness of the shoulders. See-
ing him, there remained no doubt as to whence Mary inherited
her large mouth ; but matter for thankfulness that she had
avoided further inheritance. For Mr. Cathcart was notably
plain. Small eyes and snub nose, long lower jaw, and gray
forward-curled whiskers rendered his appearance unfortunately
simian. He suggested a caricature \ but one, let it be added^
of a person undeniably well-bred.

" My darling, you are very late," Katherine said. Her
back was towards her guests as she stooped down arranging
the embroidered rug across Dickie's feet and legs. Laying his
hand on her wrist he squeezed it closely for a moment.

" I — I'll tell you all about that presently, mummy, when
they're gone. I've been enjoying myself awfully — you won't
mind ? "

Katherine smiled. But, looking up at her, it appeared ta
Richard that her face was very white, her eyes very large and
dark, and that she was very tall and, somehow, very splendid
just then. And this fed his fearlessness, fed his young pride,
even as, though in a more subtle and exquisite manner, his
late experience of the racing-stable had fed them. His mother
moved away and took up her interrupted conversation with

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 143

Mr. Cathcart regarding the delinquencies of Lord Fallowfeild.
Richard looked coolly round the room.

Every one was there — Julius, Mary, Mademoiselle dcj
Mirancourt, while away in the oriel-window Roger Ormiston
stood talking to a pretty, plump, very much dressed lady, who
chattered, laughed, stared, with surprising vivacity. As Dickie
looked at her she stared back at him through a pair of gold
eye-glasses. Against her knee, that rosy light bathing her
graceful, little figure, leant a girl about Dickie's own age.
She wore a pale pink and blue frock, short and outstanding in
the skirts. She also wore a broad-brimmed, white hat, with
a garland of blush-roses around the crown of it. The little
girl did not stare. She contemplated Richard languidly, yet
with sustained attention. Her attitude and bearing were at-
tractive. Richard wanted to see her close, to talk to her.
But to call and ask her to come to him was awkward. And
to go to her — the boy grew a little hot again — was more
awkward still.

Mrs. Ormiston dropped her gold eye-glasses into her lap.

" It really is ten thousand pities when these things happen
in the wrong rank of life," she said. " Rightly placed they
might be so profitable."

" For goodness sake, be careful, Ella," Ormiston put in
quickly.

" Oh ! My dear creature, don't be nervous. Everybody's
attending to everybody else, and if they did hear they wouldn't
understand. I'm one of the fortunate persons who are sup-
posed never to talk sense and so I can say what I like."
Mrs. Ormiston gave her shrill little laugh. "Oh! there arc
consolations, depend upon it, in a well-sustained reputation for
folly ! "

The laugh jarred on Richard. He decided that he did not
quite like his aunt Charlotte Ormiston. All the same he
wished the charming, little girl would come to him.

" But to return. It's a waste. To some poor family it
might have been a perfect fortune. And I hate waste. Per-
haps you have never discovered that ? "

Ormiston let his glance rest on the somewhat showy figure.

" I doubt if William has discovered it either," he remarked.

" Oh ! as to your poor brother William, heaven only knows
-what he has or has not discovered ! — Now, Helen, this con-

144 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

versation becomes undesirable. You've asked innumerable
questions about your cousin. Go and make acquaintance
with him. Fm the best of mothers of course, but, at times, I
really can do quite well without you."

Now surely this was a day of good fortune, for again Dickie
had his desire. And a most surprisingly pretty, little desire it
proved — seductive even, deliciously finished in person and in
manner. The boy gazed at the girl's small hands and small,
daintily shod feet, at the small, lovely, pink and white face set
in a cloud of golden-brown hair, at the innocent, blue eyes, at
the mouth with upturned corners to it. Richard was not of
age to remark the eyes were rather light in colour, the lips
rather thin. The exquisite refinement of the girl's whole
person delighted him. She was delicate as a miniature, as
a figure carved in ivory. She was like his Uncle Roger, when
she was silent and still. She was like — oh, poor Dick ! —
some bright glancing, small, saucy bird when she spoke and
her voice had those clear, flute tones in it.

*^ Since you did not come to me, I had to come to you," she
said. " I have wanted so much to see you. I had heard
about you at home, in Paris."

" Heard about me ? " Dickie repeated, flattered and sur-
prised. " But won't you sit down. Look — that little chair*
I can reach it."

And leaning sideways he stretched out his hand. But his
finger-tips barely touched the top rail. Richard flushed*
'' I'm awfully sorry," he said, " but I am afraid — it isn't heavy
— I must let you get It yourself."

The girl, who had watched him intently, her hands clasped,
gave a little sigh. Then the corners of her mouth turned up
as she smiled. A delightful dimple showed in her right cheek.

" But, of course," she replied, " I will get it."

She settled herself beside him, folded her hands, crossed
her feet, exposing a long length of fine, open-work, silk
stocking.

" I desired enormously to see you," she continued. " But
when you came in I grew shy. It Is so with one sometimes."

"You should use your Influence, Lady Calmady," Mr.
Cathcart was saying. " Unquestionably the condition of the
workhouse Is far from satisfactory. And Fallowfeild is too
lenient. That laisser-aller policy of his threatens to land us

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 145

in serious difficulties. The p/ace is insanitary, and the food
is unnecessarily poor. I am not an advocate for extrava-
gance, but I cannot bear to see discomfort which might be
avoided. Fallowfeild is the most kind-hearted of men, but
he has a fatal habit of believing what people tell him. And
those workhouse officials have got round him. The whole
matter ought to be subjected to the strictest investigation."

" It is very nice of you to have wanted so much to see me,"
Dickie said. His eyes were softly bright.

" Oh ! but one always wants to see those who are talked
about. It is a privilege to have them for one's relations."

" But — but — I'm not talked about ? " the boy put in, some-
what startled.

"But certainly. You are so rich. You have this superb
chateau. You are " — she put her head on one side with a
pretty, saucy, birdlike movement — ^^ enfin^'' she said, " I had
the greatest curiosity to make your acquaintance. I shall tell
all my young friends at the convent about this visit. I prom-
ised them that, as soon as mamma said w^e should probably
come here. The good sisters also are interested. I shall re-
count a whole history of this beautiful castle, and of you, and
your "

She paused, clasped her hands, looking away at her mother,
then sideways at Richard, bowing her little person backwards
and forwards, laughing softly all the while. And her laughing
face was extraordinarily pretty under the shade of her broad-
brimmed hat.

'' It is a great misfortune we stay so short a time," she con-
tinued. " I shall not see the half of all that I wish to see."

Then an heroic plan of action occurred to Richard. The
daring engendered by his recent act of disobedience was still
active in him. He was in the humour to attempt the impos-
sible. He longed, moreover, to give this delectable little per-
son pleasure. He was willing even to sacrifice a measure of
personal dignity In her service.

" Oh ! but if you care so much, I — I will show you the
house," he said.

" Will you ? " she cried. " You and I alone together. But
that is precisely what I want. It would be ravishing."

Poor Dickie's heart misgave him slightly ; but he sum-
moned all his resolution. He threw ofF the concealing rug.

146 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" I — I walk very slowly, I'm afraid," he said rather huskily,
looking up at her, while in his expression appeal mingled pa-
thetically with defiant pride.

" But, so much the better," she replied. " We shall be the
longer together. I shall have the more to observe, to recount."

She was on her feet. She hovered round him, birdlike, in-
tent on his every movement.

Meanwhile the sound of conversation rose continuous.
Lady Calmady, calling to Julius, had moved away to the great
writing-table in the farther window. Together they searched
among a pile of papers for a letter of Dr. Knott's embodying
his scheme of the new hospital at Westchurch. Mr. Cath-
cart stood by, expounding his views on the subject.

" Of course a considerable income can be derived from
letters of recommendation," he was saying, " in-patient and
out-patient tickets. The clergy come in there. They cannot
be expected to give large donations. It would be unreason-
able to expect that of them."

Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, Mrs. Cathcart, and Mary
had drawn their chairs together. The two elder ladies spoke
with a subdued enthusiasm, discussing pleasant details of the
approaching wedding, which promised the younger lady so
glad a future. Mrs. Ormiston chattered ; while Ormiston,
listening to her, gazed away down the green length of the
elm avenue, beyond the square lawn and pepper-pot summer-
houses, and pitied men who made such mistakes in the matter
of matrimony as his brother William obviously had. The
rose of the sunset faded in the west. Bats began to flit forth,
hawking against the still warm house-walls for flies.

And so, unobserved, Dickie slipped out of the security of
his armchair, and rose to that sadly deficient full height of his.
He was nervous, and this rendered his balance more than ever
uncertain. He shuflfled forward, steadying himself by a piece
of furniture here and there in passing, until he reached the
wide open space before the door on to the stair-head. And it
required some fortitude to cross this space, for here was noth-
ing to lay hold of for support.

Little Helen Ormiston had kept close beside him so far.
Now she drew back, leaving him alone. Leaning against a
table, she watched his laborious progress. Then a fit of un-
controllable laughter took her. She flew half-way across to

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 147

the oriel-window, her voice ringing out clear and gay, though
broken by bursts of irrepressible merriment.

" Regardez^ regardex donc^ Maman ! Ma bonne yn^avait dtt
qu*il etait un avorton^ et que ce seratt tres amusant de le voir,
Elle nC a conseiller de lui fa'tre marcher,^*

She darted back, and clapping her hands upon the bosom of
her charming frock, danced, literally danced and pirouetted
around poor Dickie.

" Moi^ je ne comprenais pas ce que c* etait qu'un avorton^^ she
continued rapidly. " Mais je comprends parfaitement main-
tenant, C'est un monstre^ n'est-ce pas^ Maman? '*

She threw back her head, her white throat convulsed by
laughter.

^^ Jh ! mon Dieu^ qu^il est drole ! " she cried.

Silence fell on the whole room, for sight and words alike
were paralysing in their grotesque cruelty. Ormiston was the
first to speak. He laid his hand somewhat roughly on his
sister-in-law's shoulder.

" For God's sake, stop this, Ella," he said. " Take the
girl away. Little brute," he added, under his breath, as he
went hastily across to poor Dick.

But Lady Calmady had been beforehand with him. She
swept across the room, flinging aside the dainty, dancing figure
as she passed. All the primitive fierceness, the savage ten
dcrness of her motherhood surged up within her. Katherine
was in the humour to kill just then, had killing been possible.
She was magnificently regardless of consequences, regardless
of conventionalities, regardless of every obligation save that
of sheltering her child. She cowered down over Richard,
putting her arms about him, knew — without question or an-
swer— that he had heard and understood. Then gathering him
up against her, she stood upright, facing them all, brother,
sister, old and tried friends, a terrible expression in her eyes,
the boy's face pressed down upon her shoulder. For the mo-
ment she appeared alienated from, and at war with, even
Julius, even Marie de Mirancourt. No love, however faith-
ful, could reach her. She was alone, unapproachable, in her
immense anger and immense sense of outrage.

" I will ask you to go," she said to her sister-in-law, — " to go
and take your daughter with you, and to enter this house no more."

Mrs. Ormiston did not reply. Even her chatter was for the

148 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

moment stilled. She pressed a handkerchief against the little
dancer's forehead, and it was stained with blood.

" Ah ! she is a wicked woman ! " wailed the child. " She
has hurt me. She threw me against the table. Maman quel
malheur fa se verra, II y aura certainement une pcatrice ! *'

" Nonsense," Ormiston said harshly. " It's nothing, Kitty,
the merest scratch."

"Yes, my dear, we will have the carriage at once," — this
from Mr. Cathcart to his wife. The incident, from all points
of view, shocked his sense of decency. Immediate retirement
became his sole object.

Lady Calmady moved away, carrying the boy. She trembled
a little. He was heavy. Moreover, she sickened at the sight
of blood. But little Helen Ormiston caught at her dress,
looked up at her.

"I hate you," she said, hissing the words out with concen-
trated passion between her pretty even teeth. " You have
spoilt me. I will hate you always, when I grow up. I will
never forget."

Alone in the great state-bedroom next door, a long time
elapsed before either Richard or Katheririe spoke. The boy
leaned back against the sofa cushions, holding his mother's
hand. The casements stood wide open, and little winds laden
with the scent of the hawthorns in the park wandered in, gently
stirring the curtains of the ebony bed, so that the trees of the
Forest of This Life thereon embroidered appeared somewhat
mournfully to wave their branches, while the Hart fled forward
and the Leopard, relentless in perpetual pursuit, followed close
behind. There was a crunching of wheels on the gravel, a
sound of hurried farewells. Then in a minute or two more
the evening quiet held its own again.

Suddenly Dickie flung himself down across Katherine's lap,
his poor body shaken by a tempest of weeping.

" Mother, I can't bear it — I can't bear it," he sobbed.
*^ Tell me, does everybody do that ? "

" Do what, my own precious ? " she said, calm from very
excess of sorrow. Later she would weep too in the dark, lymg
lonely in the cold comfort of that stately bed.

" Laugh at me, mother, mock at me ? " and his voice, for
all that he tried to control it, tore at his throat and rose almost
to a shriek.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 149

CHAPTER VI

DEALING WITH A PHYSICIAN OF THE BODY AND A PHYSICIAN

OF THE SOUL

TITISTORY repeats itself, and to Katherine just now came
most unwelcome example of such repetition. She had
foreseen that some such crisis must arise as had arisen. Yet
when it arose, the crisis proved none the less agonising because
of that foreknowledge. Two strains of feeling struggled within
her. A blinding sorrow for her child, a fear of and shame at
her own violence of anger. Katherine's mind was of an
uncompromising honesty. She knew that her instinct had, for
a space at least, been murderous. She knew that, given equal
provocation, it would be murderous again.

And this was, after all, but the active, objective aspect of the
matter. The passive and subjective aspect showed danger
also. In her extremity Katherine's soul cried out for God —
for the sure resting-place only to be found by conscious union
of the individual with the eternal will. But such repose was
denied her. For her anger against God, even while thus
earnestly desiring Him, was even more profound than her
anger against man. The passion of those terrible early days
when her child's evil fortune first became known to her — held
in abeyance all these years by constant employment and the
many duties incident to her position — returned upon her in its
first force. To believe God is not, leaves the poor human soul
homeless, sadly desolate, barren in labour as is a slave. But
the sorrow of such belief is as a trifle beside the hideous fear
that God is careless and unjust, that virtue is but a fond
imagination of all-too-noble human hearts, that the everlasting
purpose is not good but evil continually. And, haunted by
such fears, Katherine once again sat in outer darkness. All
gracious thmgs appeared to her as illusions; all gentle delights
but as passing anodynes with which, in his misery, man weakly
tries to deaden the pain of existence for a little space. She
suffered a profound discouragement.

ISO SIR RICHARD CALMADY

And so it seemed to her but as part of the cruel whole whert
history repeated itself yet further, and Dr. Knott, pausing at
the door of Richard's bedroom, turned and said to her: —

" It will be better, you know, Lady Calmady, to let him face
it alone. He'll feel it less without you. Winter can give me
all the assistance I want." Then he added, a queer smile
playing about his loose lips : — " Don't be afraid. I'll handle him
very gently. Probably I shan't hurt him at all — certainly not
much."

^' Ah ! " Katherine said, under her breath.

''You see it is done by his own wish," John Knott went on^

'' I know," she answered.

She respected and trusted this man, entertained for him^
notwithstanding his harsh speech and uncouth exterior, some-
thing akin to affection. Yet remembering the part he had
played in the fate of the father, it was very dreadful to her
that he should touch the child. And Dr. Knott read her
thought. He did not resent it. It was all natural enough !
From his heart he was sorry for her, and would have spared
her had that been possible. But he discriminated very clearly
between primary and secondary issues, never sacrificing, as do
feeble and sentimental persons, the former to the latter. In
this case the boy had a right to the stage, and so the mother
must stand in the wings. John Knott possessed a keen sense
of values in the human drama which the exigencies of his
profession so perpetually presented to him. He waited quietly y^
his hand on the door-handle, looking at Katherine from under
his rough eyebrows, silently opposing his will to hers.

Suddenly she turned away with an impatient gesture.

" I will not come with you," she said.

" You are right." ..^ — -- —

" But — but — do you think you can really do anything to help
him, to make him happier ? " Katherine asked, a desperation
in the tones of her voice.

"Happier? Yes, in the long run, because certainty of
whatever kind, even certainty of failure, makes eventually for
peace of mind."

" That is a hard saying."

" This is a hard world." Dr. Knott looked down at the
floor, shrugging his unwieldy shoulders. " The sooner we
learn to accept that fact the better. Lady Calmady. I know

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 151

it is sharp discipline, but it saves time and money, let alone
disappointment. — Now as to all these elaborate contrivances
Tve brought down from London, they're the very best of
their kind. But I am bound to own the most ingenious of
such arrangements are but clumsy remedies for natural
deficiency. Man hasn't discovered how to make over his own
body yet, and never will. The Almighty will always have
the whip-hand of us when it comes to dealing with flesh and
blood. All the same we've got to try these legs and things "

Katherine winced, pressing her lips together. It was brutal,
surely, to speak so plainly ? But John Knott went on
quietly, commiserating her inwardly, yet unswerving in
common sense.

" Try 'em every one, and so convince Sir Richard one way
or the other. This is a turning-point. So far his general
health has been remarkably good, and we've just got to set our
minds to keeping it good. He must not fret if we can help it.
If he frets, instead of developing into the sane, manly fellow
he should, he may turn peevish. Lady Calmady, and grow up a
morbid, neurotic lad, the victim of all manner of brain-sick
fancies — become envious, spiteful, a misery to others and to
himself."

"It is necessary to say all this ? " Katherine asked loftily.

Dr. Knott's eyes looked very straight into hers, and there
were tears in them.

" Indeed, I believe it is," he replied, " or, trust me, I
wouldn't say it. I take no pleasure in giving pain at this time of
day, whether mental or physical. All I want is to spare pain.
But one must sacrifice the present to the future, at times, you
know — use the knife to save the limb. Now I must go to my
patient. It isn't fair to keep him waiting any longer. I'll be
as quick as I can. I suppose I shall find you here when I've
finished ? "

As he opened the door Dr. Knott's heavy person showed in
all its ungainliness against the brightness of sunlight flooding
Dickie's room. And to Katherine he seemed hideous just
then — inexorable in his great common sense, in the dead
weight of his personality and of his will, as some power of
nature. He was to her the incarnation of things as they are,
— not things as they should be, not things as she so passionately
desired they might be. He represented rationalism as against

152 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

miracle, intellect as against imagination, the bitter philosophy
of experience as against that for which all mortals so persist-
ently cry out — namdy, the all-consolin^fpromise of extrava-
gant hope. As with chains he bouna her down to fact.
Right home on her he pressed the utter futility of juggling
with the actual. j[^rom the harsh truth that, neither in mat-
ters practical nor spiritual is any redemption without shedding
of blood he permitted her no escape.

And all this Katherine's clear brain recognised and admitted,
even while her poor heart only rebelled the more madly. To
be convinced is not to be reconciled. And so she turned
away from that closed door in a veritable tempest of feeling,
and went out into the Chapel-Room. It was safer, her mind
and heart thus working, to put a space between herself and
that closed door.

Just then Julius March crossed the room, coming in from
the stair-head. The austere lines of his cassock emphasised
the height and emaciation of his figure. His appearance of-
fered a marked contrast to that of the man with whom Kath-
erine had just parted. His occupation offered a marked con-
trast also. He carried a gold chalice and paten, and his head
was bowed reverentially above the sacred vessels. His eyes
were downcast, and the dull pallor of his face and his long
thin hands was very noticeable. He did not look round, but
passed silently, still as a dream, into the chapel. Katherine
paced the width of the great room, turned and paced back
and forth again some half-dozen times, before he emerged from
the chapel door. In her present humour she did not want
him, yet she resented his abstraction. The physician of the
soul, like the physician of the body, appeared to her lamen-
tably devoid of power to sustain and give comfort at the pres-
ent juncture.

This, it so happened, was one of those days when the
mystic joy of his priestly office held Julius March forcibly.
He had ministered to others, and his own soul was satisfied.
His expression was exalted, his short-sighted eyes were alive
with inward light. Tired and worn, there was still a remark-
able suavity in his bearing. He had come forth from the holy
of holies, and the vision beheld there dwelt with him yet.

Meanwhile, brooding storm sat on Katherine's brow, on
her lips, dwelt in her every movement. And something of this

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 153

Julius perceived, for his devotion to her was intact, as was his
self-abnegation. Throughout all these years he had never
sought to approach her more closely. His attitude had re-
mained as delicately scrupulous, untouched by worldliness, or
by the baser part of passion, as in the first hour of the dis-
covery of his love. Her near presence gave him exquisite
pleasure; but, save when she needed his assistance in some
practical matter, he refused to indulge himself bypassing much
time in her society. Abstinence still remained his rule of life.
But just now, strong with the mystic strength of his late min-
istrations, and perceiving her troubled state, he permitted him-
self to remain and pace beside her.

" You have been out all day ? " Katherine said.

'' Yes, I stayed on to the end with Rebecca Light. Thejr
sent for me early this morning. She passed away very peace-
fully in that little attic at the new lodge looking out into the
green heart of the woods."

" Ah ! It's simple enough to die," Katherine said, " being^
old. The difficult thing is to live, being still young."

^^ Has my absence been inconvenient ? Have you wanted
me ? " Julius asked. — Those quiet hours spent in the humble
death-chamber suddenly appeared to him as an act of possible
selfishness.

" Oh no ! " she answered bitterly. "Why should I want
you ? Have I not sent Roger and Mary away ? Am I not
secretly glad dear Marie de Mirancourt is just sufficiently
poorly to remain in her room ? When the real need comes —
one learns that among all the other merciless lessons — one is
best by oneself."

For a while, only the whisper of Lady Calmady's skirts, the
soft, even tread of feet upon the thick carpet. Then she said^
almost sharply : —

" Dr. Knott is with Richard."

" Ah ! I understand," Julius murmured.

But Lady Calmady took up his words with a certain heat.

"No, you do not understand. You none of you under-
stand, and that is why I am better by myself. Mary and
Roger in their happiness, dear Marie in her saintly resignation,
and you " — Katherine turned her head, smiled at him in lovely
scorn — " you, my dear Julius, of all men, what should you
know of the bitter pains of motherhood, you who are too

154 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

good to be quite human, you who regard this world merely as
the antichamber of paradise, you, whose whole affection is
«et on your Church — your God — how should you understand ?
Between my experience and yours there is a very wide interval.
How can you know what I suffer — you who have never loved."

Under the stress of her excitement Katherine's pace quick-
ened. The whisper of her skirts grew to a soft rush. Julius
kept beside her. His head was bent reverently, even as over
the sacred vessels he had so lately carried.

" I too have loved," he said at last.

Katherine stopped short, and looked at him incredulously.

" Really, Julius ? " she said.

Raising his head, he looked back at her. This avowal gave
him a strange sense of completeness and mastery. So he al-
lowed his eyes to meet Katherine's, he allowed himself to
reckon with her grace and beauty.

*' Very really," he answered.

" But when ? "

" Long ago — and always."

" Ah ! " she said. Her expression had changed. Brooding
«torm no longer sat on her brow and lips. She was touched.
For the moment the weight of her personal distress was lifted.
Dickie and Dr. Knott together in that bedchamber, experi-
menting with unlovely, mechanical devices for aiding locomo-
tion and concealing the humiliation of deformity, were almost
forgotten. To those who have once loved, love must always
supremely appeal. Julius appeared to her in a new aspect.
She felt she had done him injustice. She placed her hand on
his arm with a movement of apology and tenderness. And
the man grew faint, trembled, feeling her hand; seeing it lie
white and fair on the sleeve of his black cassock. Sin,ce child-
hood it was the first, the solitary caress he had received.

" Pardon me, dear Julius," she said. " I must have pained
you at times, but I did not know this. I always supposed you
coldly indifferent to those histories of the heart which mean
so much to some of us; supposed your religion held you
wholly, and that you pitied us as the wise pity the foolish,
standing above them, looking down. Richard told me many
things about you, before he brought me home here, but he
never told me this."

" Richard never knew it," he answered, smiling. Her per-

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 155

feet unconsciousness at once calmed and pained him. He had
kept his secret, all these years, only too well.

Katherine turned and began to pace again, her hands clasped
behind her h?.ck.

" But, tell me — tell me," she said. " You can trust me,
you know. I will never speak of this unless you speak.
But if I knew, it would bring us nearer together, and that
would be comforting, perhaps, to us both. Tell me, what hap-
pened ? Did she know, and did she love you ? She must
have loved you, I think. Then what separated you ? Did
she die ? "

" No, thank God, she did not die," Julius said. He paused^
He longed to gain the relief of fuller confession, yet feared to-
betray himself. " I believe she loved me truly as a friend —
and that was sufficient."

" Oh no, no ! " Katherine cried. " Do not decline upon
sophistries. That is never sufficient."

" In one sense, yes — in another sense, no," Julius said. ^*' It
was thus. I loved her exactly as she was. Had she loved
me as I loved her she would have become other than she was."

" Ah ! but surely you are too ingenious, too fastidious."
Katherine's voice took tones of delicate remonstrance and
pleading. '' That would be your danger, in such a case. Le
mieux est fetiJiemi du hien^ and you would always risk sacrifi-
cing the real to the ideal. I am sorry. I would like you to
have tasted the fulness of life. Even though the days of
perfect joy are very few, it is well to have had them "

She threw back her head, her eyebrows drew together, and
her face darkened somewhat.

"Yes, it is well to have had them, though the memory of
them cuts one to the very quick." — Then her manner changed
again, gaining a touch of gaiety. " Really I am very unselfish
in wishing all this otherwise," she said, " for it would have
been a sore trial to part with you. I cannot imagine Brock-
hurst without you. I should have been m great straits
deprived of my friend and counselor. And yet, I would like
you to have been very happy, dear Julius."

Their pacing had just brought them to the arched doorway
of the chapel. Katherine stopped, and raising her arm leaned
her hand against the stone jamb of it above her head.

" See," she went on, " I want to be truly unselfish. I know^

156 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

how generous you are. Perhaps you remain here out of all
too great kindness towards my poor Dick and me. You
mustn't do that, Julius. You say she is still living. Consider
— is it too late ? ''

Was it indeed too late ? All the frustrated manhood cried
aloud in Julius March. He covered his face with his hands.
His carefully restrained imagination ran riot, presenting en-
chantments.

And Katherine, watching him, found herself strangely
moved, p'or it was very startling to see this so familiar figure
under so unfamiliar an aspect — to see Julius March, her every-
day companion and assistant, his reticence, his priestly aloof-
ness, his mild and courtly calm, swept under by a tide of
personal emotion. Lady Calmady was drawn to him by deep-
ened sympathy. Yet regret arose in her that this man proved
to be, after all, but as other men. She was vaguely disap-
pointed, having derived more security than she had quite
realised from his apparent detachment and impassibility. And,
as an indirect consequence, her revolt against God sufFeredf
access of bitterness. For not only was He — to her seeing —
callous regarding the fate of the many, but He failed to sup-
port those few most devoted to His cause. In the hour of
their trial He was careless even of His own elect.

"Ah! I think it is indeed by no means too late ! " she
exclaimed.

Julius March let his hands drop at his sides. He gazed at
her and her expression was of wistful mockery — compassionate
rather than ironical. Then he looked away down the length
of the chapel. In the warm afternoon light, the solid and rich
brown of the arcaded stalls on either hand, emphasised the
Harmonious radiance of the great east window, a radiance as
of clear jewels. — Ranks of kneeling saints, the gold of whose
aureoles rose in an upward curve to the majestic image of the
Christ in the central light — a Christ risen and glorified,
enthroned. His feet shining forever upon heaven's sapphire
floor. Before the altar hung three silver-gilt lamps of Italian
workmanship, in the crimson cup of each of which it had so
Jong been Julius's pleasure to keep the tongue of flame con-
stantly alive. The habits of a lifetime are not hastily set
aside. Gazing on these things, his normal attitude returned
to him. Not that which he essentially was but that which, by

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 157

long and careful training of every thought, every faculty, he
had become, authoritatively claimed him. His eyes fell from
contemplation of the glories of the window to that of the long^
straight folds of the cassock which clothed him. It was hardly
the garb in which a man goes forth to woo ! Then he looked
at Lady Calmady — she altogether seductive in her innocence
and in her wistful mockery as she leaned against the jamb of
the door.

" You are mistaken, dear Katherine,*' he said. " It has
always been too late."

^^ But why — why— if she is free to listen ? "

" Because I am not free to speak."

Julius smiled at her. His suavity had returned, and along
with it a dignity of bearing not observable before.

" Let us walk," he said. And then : — " After all I have
given you a very mutilated account of this matter. Soon after
I took orders, before I had ever seen the very noble, to me
perfect, woman who unconsciously revealed to me the glory
of human love, I had dedicated my life, and all my powers —
poor enough, I fear — of mind and body to the service of the
Church. I was ambitious in those days. Ambition is deady
killed by the knowledge of my own shortcomings. I have
proved an unprofitable servant — for which may God in His
great mercy forgive me. But, while my faith in myself has
withered, my faith in Him has come to maturity. I have
learned to think very differently on many subjects, and ta
perceive that our Heavenly Father's purposes regarding us are
more generous, more far-reaching, more august, than in my
youthful ignorance I had ever dreamed. All things are lawful
in His sight. Nothing is common or unclean — if we have
once rightly apprehended Him, and He dwells in us. And
yet — yet, a vow once made is binding. We may not do evil
to gain however great a good."

Katherine listened in silence. The words came with the
power of immutable conviction. She could not believe, yet
she was glad to have him believe.

" And that vow precludes marriage ? " she said at last.

" It does," Julius answered.

For a time they paced again in silence. Then Lady Calmady
spoke, a delicate intimacy and affection in her manner, while
once more, for a moment, she let her hand rest on his arm.

158 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" So Brockhurst keeps you — I keep you, dear Julius, to the
last ? "

"Yes, if you will, to the very last."

'' I am thankful for that," she said. " You must forgive
me if in the past I have been inconsiderate at times. I am
afraid the constant struggle, w^hich certain circumstances of
necessity create, tends to make me harsh and imperious. I
carry a trouble, w^hich calls aloud for redress, forever in my
arms. They ache with the burden of it. And there is no
redress. And the trouble grows stronger alas. Its voice — so
dear, yet so dreaded — grows louder, till it deafens me to all
other sounds. The music of this once beautiful world be-
comes faint. Only angry discord remains. And I become
selfish. I am the victim of a fixed idea. I become heedless
of the suffering of those about me. And you, my poor Julius,
must have suffered very much ' "

" Now, less than ever before," he answered. But even as
he spoke, Katherine was struck by his pallor, by the drawn
look of his features and languor of his bearing.

" Ah, you have fasted all day ! " she cried.

" What matter ? " he said, smiling. " The body surely can
sustain a trifle of hunger, if the soul and spirit are fed. I
have feasted royally to-day in that respect. I am strangely
at ease. As to baser sort of food, what wonder if I for-

The door of Dickie's bedchamber opened, letting in long
shafts of sunlight, and Dr. Knott came slowly forward. His
aspect was savage. Even his philosophy had been not wholly
proof against the pathos of his patient's case. It irritated him
to fall from his usual relentlessness of common sense into a
melting mood. He took refuge in sarcasm, desirous to detect
weakness in others, since he was, unwillingly, so disagreeably
conscious of it in himself.

" Well, we're through with our business, Lady Calmady,"
he said. "Eh! Mr. March, what's wrong with you?
Putty-coloured skin and shortness of breath. A little less
prayer and a little more physical exercise is what you want.
Successful, Lady Calmady ? — Umph — I'm afraid the less said
about that the better. Sir Richard will talk it out with you
himself. Upset ? Yes, I don't deny he is a little upset —
and, like a fool, I'm upset too. You can go to him now,

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 159

Lady Calmady. Keep him cheerful, please, and give him his
head as much as you can."

John Knott watched her as she moved away. He shrugged
his shoulders and thrust his hands into his breeches' pockets.

"She's going to hear what she won't much relish, poor
thing," he said. " But I can't help that. One man's meat
is another man's poison ; and my affair is with the boy's meat,
even if it should be of a kind to turn his mother's stomach.
He shall have just all the chance I can get him, poor little
chap. And now, Mr. March, I propose to prescribe for you,
for you look uncommonly like taking a short-cut to heaven,
and, if I know anything about this house, you've got your
woik cut out for you here below for a long time to come.
Through with this business? Pooh ! we've only taken a pre-
liminary canter as yet. That boy's out of the common in
more ways tha/i one, and, cripple or no cripple, he's bound to
lead you all a pretty lively dance before he's done."

CHAPTER VII

AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE THE BEST OF IT

^TpHE day ltd been hot, though the summer was but young.
"*^ A wealth of steady sunlight bathed the western front
of the house. All was notably still, save for a droning of
bees, a sound )f wood-chopping, voices now and again, and
the squeak of a wheelbarrow away in the gardens.

Richard lay on his back upon the bed. He had drawn the
blue embroidered coverlet up about his waist; but his silk
shirt was thrown open, exposing his neck and chest. His
arms were flung up and out across the pillow on either side
his gold-brown, clo^e-curled head. As his mother entered he
turned his face towards the open window. There was vigour
and distinction in the profile — in the straight nose, full chin,
and strong line of the lower jaw, in the round, firm throat,
and small ear set close against the head. The muscles of his
neck and arms were well developed. Seen thus, lying in the
quiet glow of the afternoon sunshine, all possibility of physical
disgrace seemed far enough from Richard Calmady. He

i6o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

might indeed, not unfitly, have been compared to one of those
nobly graceful lads, who, upon the frieze of some Greek
temple, set forth forever the perfect pattern of temperance
and high courage, of youth and health.

As Katherine sat down beside the bed, Richard thrust out
his left hand. She took it in both hers, held and stroked the
palm of it. But for a time she could not trust herself to
speak. For she saw that, notwithstanding the resolute set of
his lips, his breath caught in short quick sobs and that his eye-
lashes were glued in points by late shed tears. And seeing
this, Katherine's motherhood arose and confronted her with
something of reproach. It seemed to her she had been guilty
of disloyalty in permitting her thought to be beguiled even
for the brief space of her conversation with Julius March.
She felt humbled, a little in Dickie's debt, since she had not
realised to the uttermost each separate moment of his trial as
each of those moments passed.

" My darling, I am afraid Dr. Knott has hurt you very
much," she said at last.

" Oh ! I don't know. I suppose he did hurt. He pulled
me about awfully, but I didn't mind that. I told him to keep
on till he made sure," Richard answered huskily, still turning
his face from her. " But none of those beastly legs and
things fitted. He could not fix them so that I could use
them. It was horrid. They only made me more helpless than
before. You see — my — my feet are in the way."

The last words came to Katherine as a shock. The boy
had never spoken openly of his deformity, and in thus speak-
ing he appeared to her to rend asunder the last of those veils
with which she had earnestly striven to conceal the disgrace
of it from him. She remained very still, bracing herself to
bear — the while slowly stroking his hand. Suddenly the
strong, young fingers closed hard on hers. Richard turned
his head.

"Mother," he said, "the doctor can't do anything for me.
It's no use. We've just got to let it be."

He set his teeth, choking a little, and drew the back of
Jiis right hand across his eyes.

"It's awfully stupid; but somehow I never knew I should
mind so much. I — I never did mind much till just lately. It
foegan — the minding, I mean — the day Uncle Roger came

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS i6i

home. It was the way he looked at me, and hearing about
things he'd done. And I had a beastly dream that night.
And it's all grown worse since."

He paused a minute, making a strong effort to speak
steadily.

^' I suppose it's silly to mind. I ought to be accustomed ta
it by this time. I've never known anything else. But I
never thought of all it meant and — and — how it looked to
other people till Helen was here and wanted me to show her
the house. I — I supposed every one would take it for granted,,
as you all do here at home. And then I'd a hope Dr. Knott
might find a way to hide it and so help me. But — but he
can't. That hope's quite gone."

" My own darling," Katherine murmured.

"Yes, please say that! " he cried, looking up eagerly. "I
am your darling, mother, aren't I, just the same ? Dr. Knott
said something about you just now. He's an awfully fine old
chap. I like him. He talked to me for a long time after
we'd sent Winter away, and he was ever so kind. And he
told me it was bad for you too, you know — for both of us.
I'm afraid I had not thought much about that before. I've
been thinking about it since. And I began to be afraid that—
that I might be a nuisance, — that you might be ashamed of
me, later, when I am grown up, since I've always got to be
like this, you see."

The boy's voice broke.

" Mother, mother, you'll never despise me, who ever does^
will you ? " he sobbed.

And it seemed to Lady Calmady that now she must have
touched bottom in this tragedy. There could surely be no
further to go ? It was well that her mood was soft ; that for
a little while she had ceased to be under the dominion of her
so sadly fixed idea. In talking with Julius March she had
been reminded how constant a quantity is sorrow ; hov/ real,^
notwithstanding their silence, are many griefs; how strong is
human patience. And this indirectly had fortified her.
Wrung with anguish for the boy, she yet was calm. She
knelt down by the bedside and put her arms round him.

" Most precious one — listen," she said. " You must never
ask me such a question again. I am your mother — you can-
not measure all that implies, and so you cannot measure the

i62 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

pain your question causes me. Only you must believe, be-
cause I tell it you, that your mother's love w^ill never grow
old or vi^ear thin. It is always there, always fresh, always
ready. In utter security you can come back to it again and
again. It is like one of those clear springs in the secret
places of the deep woods — you know them — which bubble up
forever. Drink, often as you may, however heavy the drought
or shrunken the streams elsewhere, those springs remain full
to the very lip." — Her tone changed, taking a tender play-
fulness. "Why, my Dickie, you are the light of my eyes,
my darling, the one thing which makes me still care to live.
You are your father's gift to me. And so every kiss you give
me, every pretty word you say to me, is treasured up for his,
as well as for your own, dear sake."

She leaned back, laid her head on the pillow beside his,
cheek to cheek. Katherine was a young woman still — ^young
enough to have moments of delicate shyness in the presence of
lier son. She could not look at him now as she spoke.

^^ You know, dearest, if I could take your bodily misfortune
upon me, here, directly, and give you my wholeness, I would
do it more readily, with greater thankfulness and delight than
I have ever done anything in "

But Richard raised his hand and laid it, almost violently,
upon her mouth.

"Oh stop, mother, stop!" he cried. "Don't — it's too
dreadful to think of."

He flung away, and lay at as far a distance as the width of
the bed would allow, gazing at her in angry protest.

" You can't do that. But you don't suppose I'd let you do
it even if you could," he said fiercely. Then he turned his face
to the sunny western window again. '^ I like to know that
you're beautiful anyhow, mother, all — all over," he said.

There followed a long silence between them. Lady Cal-
mady still knelt by the bedside. But she drew herself up,
rested her elbows on the bed and clasped her hands under her
chin. And as she knelt there something of proud comfort
came to her. For so long she had sickened, fearing the hour
when Richard should begin clearly to gauge the extent of his
own ill-luck ; yet, now the first shock of plain speech over,
she experienced relief. For the future they could be honest,
she and he, — so she thought, — and speak heart to heart.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 163:

Moreover, in his so bitter distress, it was to her — not to Mary,,
his good comrade, not to Roger Ormiston, the Ulysses of his
fancy — that the boy had turned. He was given back to her,,
and she was greatly gladdened by that. She was gladdened too-
by Richard's last speech, by his angry and immediate repudia-
tion of the bare mention of any personal gain which should
touch her with loss. Katherine's eyes kindled as she knelt
there watching her son. For it was very much to find him
chivalrous, hotly sensitive of her beauty and the claims of her
womanhood. In instinct, in thought, in word, he had showm
himself a very gallant, high-bred gentleman — child though he
was. And this gave Katherine not only proud comfort in the
present, but cheered the future with hope.

" Look here, Dickie, darling,*' she said softly at last, " tell
me a little more about your talk with Dr. Knott."

" Oh ! he was awfully kind," Richard answered, turning
towards her again, while his face brightened, " He said some
awfully jolly things to me."

The boy put out his hand and began playing with the
bracelets on Katherine's wrists. He kept his^ eyes fixed on
them as he fino-ered them.

o

" He told me I was very strong and well made — except, of
course, for it. And that I was not to imagine myself ill or
invalidy, because I'm really less ill than most people, you
know. And — he said — you won't think me foolish, mother^
if I tell you ? — he said I was a very handsome fellow."

Richard glanced up quickly, while his colour deepened.

" Am I really handsome ? " he asked.

Katherine smiled at him.

" Yes, you are very handsome, Dickie. You have always
been that. You were a beautiful baby, a beautiful' little child.
And now, every day you grow more like your father. I can't
quite talk about him, my dear — but ask Uncle Roger, ask
Marie de Mirancourt what he was when she knew him first.'*

The boy's face flashed back her smile, as the sea does the
sunlight.

" Oh ! I say, but that's good news," he said. He lay quite
still on his back for a little while, thinking about it.

"That seems to give one a shove, you know," he remarked
presently. Then he fell to playing with her bracelets again.
" After all, I've got a good many shoves to-day, mother. Dr^

i64 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Knott's a regular champion shover. He told me about a
number of people he'd known who had got smashed up some-
how, or who'd always had something wrong, you know — and
how they'd put a good face on it and hadn't let it interfere,
but had done things just the same. And he told me I'd just
got to be plucky — he knew I could if I tried — and not let it
interfere either. He told me I mustn't be soft, or lazy, be-
cause doing things is more difficult for me than for other peo-
ple. But that I'd just got to put my back into it, and go in
and win. And I told him I would — and you'll help me,
mummy, won't you ? '*

"Yes, darling, yes," Lady Calmady said.

"I want to begin at once," he went on hurriedly, looking
hard at the bracelets. " I shouldn't like to be unkind to her,
mother, but do you think Clara would give me up ? I don't
need a nurse now. It's rather silly. May one of the men-
servants valet me ? I should like Winter best, because he's
been here always, and I shouldn't feel shy with him. Would
it bore you awfully to speak about that now, so that he might
begin to-night ? "

Lady Calmady's brave smile grew a trifle sad. The boy
■was less completely given back to her than she had fondly sup-
posed. This day was after all to introduce a new order. And
the woman always pays. She was to pay for that advance, so
was the devoted handmaiden, Clara. Still the boy must have
his way — were it even towards a merely imagined good.

"*' Very well, dearest, I will settle it," she answered.

** You won't mind, though, mother ? "

Katherine stroked the short curly hair back from his fore-
head.

" I don't mind anything that promises to make you happier,
Dickie," she said. " What else did you and Dr. Knott settle
— anything else ? "

Richard waited, then he turned on his elbow and looked full
and very earnestly at her.

" Yes, mother, we did settle something more. And some-
thing that I'm afraid you won't like. But it would make me
happier than anything else — It would make all the difference
that — that can be made, you know."

He paused, his expression very firm though his lips quiv-
ered.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 165

" Dr. Knott wants me to ride."

Katherine drew back, stood up straight, threw out her
hands as though to keep off some actual and tangible object of
offense.

" Not that, Richard," she cried. " Anything in the world
rather than that."

He looked at her imploringly, yet with a certain determina-
tion, for the child was dying fast in him and the forceful desires
and intentions of youth growing.

" Don't say 1 mustn't, mother. Pray, pray don't, be-
cause "

He left the sentence unfinished, overtaken by the old habit
of obedience, yet he did not lower his eyes.

But Lady Calmady made no response. For the moment she
was outraged to the point of standing apart, even from her
child. For a moment, even motherhood went down before
purely personal feeling — and this, by the irony of circum-
stance, immediately after motherhood had made supreme con-
fession of immutability. But remembering her husband's
death, remembering the source of all her child's misfortune, it
appeared to her indecent, a wanton insult to all her past suf-
fering, that such a proposition should be made to her. And,,
in a flash of cruelly vivid perception, she knew how the boy
would look on a horse, the grotesque, to the vulgar, wholly
absurd spectacle he must, notwithstanding his beauty, neces-
sarily present. For a moment the completeness of love failed
before pride touched to the very quick.

" But, how can you ride ? " she said. " My poor child^
think — how is it possible ? "

Richard sat upright, pressing his hands down on the bed-
clothes on either side to steady himself. The colour rushed
over his face and throat.

" It is possible, mother," he answered resolutely, ^' or Dr.
Knott would never have talked about it. He couldn't have
been so unkind. He drew me the plan of a saddle. He said
1 was to show it to Uncle Roger to-night. Of course it
won't be easy at first, but I don't care about that. And
Chifney would teach me. I know he would. He said the
other day he'd make a sportsman of me yet."

*^When did you talk with Chifney?" Lady Calmady
spoke very quietly, but there was that in her tone which came

i66 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

near frightening the boy. It required all his daring to answer
honestly and at once.

" I talked to him the day Aunt Ella and Helen were here.
J — I went down to the stables with him and saw all the
horses."

" Then either you or he did very wrong," Lady Calmady
remarked.

" It was my fault, mother, all my fault. Chifney would
have ridden on, but I stopped him. Chaplin tried to prevent
me. I — I told him to mind his own business. I meant to
go. I — I saw all the horses, and they were splendid," he
added, enthusiasm gaining over fear. " I saw the stables, and
the weighing-room, and everything. I never enjoyed myself
^o much before. I told Chaplin I would tell you, because he
ought not to be blamed, you know. I did mean to tell you
^directly I came in. But all those people were here." — Rich-
ard's face darkened. " And you remember what happened ?
That put everything else out of my head."

A pause. Then he said : " Are you very angry ? "

Katherine made no reply. She moved away round the foot
of the bed and stood at the sunny window in silence. Bitter-
ness of hot humiliation possessed her. Heretofore, whatever
her trial, she had been mistress of the situation ; she had
reigned a queen-mother, her authority undisputed. And now
it appeared her kingdom was in revolt, conspiracy was rife.
Richard's will and hers were in conflict ; and Richard's will
tnust eventually obtain, since he would eventually be master.
Already courtiers bowed to that will. All this was in her
mind. And a wounding of feeling, far deeper and more inti-
mate than this, — since Katherine's nobility of character was
great and the worldly aspect, the greed of personal power and
undisputed rule, could not affect her for long. It wounded
her, as a slight upon the memory of the man she had so
wholly loved, that this first conflict between Richard and her-
:self should turn on the question of horses and the racing-
stable. The irony of the position appeared unpardonable.
And then, the vision of poor Richard — her darling, whom she
had striven so jealously to shield ever since the day, over thir-
teen years ago, when undressing her bsby she had first looked
upon its malformed limbs — Richard riding forth for all the
staring, mocking world to see, again arose before her.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 167

Thinking of all this, Katherinc gazed out over the stately-
home scene — grass plot and gardens, woodland and distant
landscape, rich in the golden splendour of steady sunshine —
with smarting eyes and a sense of impotent misery that
wrapped her about as a burning garm.ent. The boy was be-
ginning to go his own way. And his way was not hers..
And those she had trusted were disloyal, helping him to go it.
Alone, in retirement, she had borne her great trouble with
tremendous courage. But how should she bear it under
changed conditions, amid publicity, gossip, comment ?

Dickie, meanwhile, had let himself drop back against the
pillows. He set his teeth and waited. It was hard. An
opportunity of escape from the galling restraints of his in-
firmity had been presented to him, and his mother — his mother
after promise given, after the sympathy of a lifetime ; his
mother, in whom he trusted absolutely — was unwilling he
should accept it ! As he lay there all the desperate longing
for freedom and activity that had developed in him of late —
all the passion for sport, for that primitive, half-savage man-
ner of life, that intimate, if somewhat brutal, relation to na-
ture, to wild creatures and to the beasts whom man by cen-
turies of usage has broken to his service, which is the special
heritage of Englishmen of gentle blood — sprang up in Rich-
ard, strong, all compelling. He must have his part in all this..
He would not be denied. He cried out to her imperiously : — ►

" Mother, speak to me ! I haven't done anything really
wrong. I've a right to do what any other boy has — as far as
I can get it. Don't you see riding is just the one thing to —
to make up — to make a man of me ? Don't you see that ? '*

He sat bolt upright, stretching out his arms to her in fierce
appeal, while the level sunshine touched his bright hair and
wildly eager face.

" Mummy, mummy darling, don't you see ? Try to see^
You can't want to take away my one chance ! "

Katherine turned at that reiterated cry, and her heart melted
within her. The boy was her own, bone of her bone, flesh
of her flesh. From her he had life. From her he had also
lifelong disgrace and deprivation. Was there anything then^
which, he asking, she could refuse to give ? She cast herself
on her knees beside the bed again and buried her face in the
sheet.

i68 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"My precious one,'* she sobbed, "forgive me. I am
ashamed, for I have been both harsh and weak. I said I
would help you, and then directly I fail you. Forgive me."

And the boy was amazed, speechless at first, seeing her
broken thus ; shamed in his turn by the humility of her atti-
tude. To his young chivalry it was as an impiety to look upon
her tears.

" Please don't cry, mother," he entreated tremulously, a
childlike simplicity of manner taking him. " Don't cry — it
is dreadful. I never saw you cry before." — Then, after a
pause, he added : " And — never mind about my riding. I
don't so very much care about it — really, I don't believe I do
—after all."

At that dear lie Katherine raised her bowed head, a wonder-
ful sweetness in her tear-stained face, tender laughter upon her
lips. She drew the boy's hands on to her shoulders, clasped
her hands across his extended arms, and kissed him upon the
mouth.

'^ No, no, my beloved, you shall ride," she said. " You
shall have your saddle — twenty thousand saddles if you want
them. We will talk to Uncle Roger and Chifney to-night.
All shall be as you wish."

" But you're not angry, mother, any more ? " he asked, a
little bewildered by her change of tone and by the passion of
her lovely looks and speech.

Katherine shook her head, and still that tender laughter
curved her lips.

" No, I am never going to be angry any more — with you at
least, Dick. I must learn to be plucky too. A pair of us,
Dickie, trying to keep up one another's pluck ! Only let us
go forward hand in hand, you and I, and then, however des-
perate our doings, I at least shall be content."

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 169

CHAPTER Vni

TELLING, INCIDENTALLY, OF A BROKEN-DOWN POSTBOY
AND A COUNTRY FAIR

' I ^HE Brockhurst-mall phaeton waited. In the shade of th^
three large sycamores, before Appleyard's shop at Farley
Row. A groom stood stiff and straight at the horses' headsc
While upon the high driving-seat, a trifle excited by the sud-
denness of his elevation, sat Richard. He held the reins in
his right hand, and stretched his left to get the cramp out of
his fingers. His arms ached — there was no question about it.
He had never driven a pair before, and the horses needed a
lot of driving. For the wind was gusty, piling up heavy
masses of black-purple rain-cloud in the southeast. It made
the horses skittish and unsteady, and Dickie found it was just
all he could do to hold them, so that Chifney's reiterated ad-
monition, " Keep 'em well in hand. Sir Richard," had been
not wholly easy to obey. "^ j

From out the open shop-door came mingled odour of new
leather and of horse clothing. Within Mr. Chifney delivered
himself of certain orders; while Appleyard — a small, fair man,
thin of nose, a spot of violent colour on either cheek-bone —
skipped before him goat-like, in a fury of complacent intelli-
gence. For it was not every day so notable a personage as
the Brockhurst trainer crossed his threshold. To Josiah
Appleyard, indeed — not to mention his two apprentices
stretching eyes and ears from the back-shop, to catch any
chance word of Mr. Chifney's conversation — it appeared as
though the gods very really condescended to visit the habita-
tions of men. While Mrs. Appleyard, peeping from behind
the wire blind of the parlour, had — as she afterwards repeat-
edly declared — " felt her insides turn right over," vi^hen she
saw the carriage draw up. The conversation was prolonged
and low toned. For the order was of a peculiar and con-
fidential character, demanding much explanation on the one
part, much application on the other. It was an ordei in

170 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

short, wholly flattering to the self-esteem of the saddler, both
as tribute to his social discretion and his technical skill. Thus
did Josiah skip goat-like, being glad.

Meanwhile, Richard Calmady waited without, resting his
aching arms, gazing down the wide, dusty street, his senses
lulled by the flutter of the sycamore leaves overhead. The
said street offered but small matter of interest. For Farley
Row is one of those dead-alive little towns on the borders of
the forest land, across which progress, even at the time in
question, 1856, had written Ichabod in capital letters. Dur-
ing the early years of the century some sixty odd coaches,
plying upon the London and Portsmouth road, would stop to
change horses at the White Lion in the course of each twenty-
four hours. That was the golden age of the Row. Horns
twanged, heavy wheels rumbled, steaming teams were led
away, with drooping heads, into the spacious inn yard, and
fresh horses stepped out cheerily to take their place between
the traces. The next stage across Spendle Flats was known
as a risky one. Legends of Claude Duval and his fellow-
highwaymen still haunt the woods and moors that top the long
hill going northward. And the passengers by those sixty
coaches were wont to recover themselves from terrors escaped,
or fortify themselves against terrors to come, by plentiful
libations at the bar of the handsome red-brick inn. The
house did a roaring trade. But now the traffic upon the great
road had assumed a local and altogether undemonstrative char-
acter. The coaches had fallen into lumber, the spanking
teams had each and all made their squalid last journey to the
knacker's ; and the once famous Gentlemen of the Road had
long lain at rest in mother earth's lap — sleeping there none the
less peacefully because the necks of many of them had suffered
a nasty rick from the hangman's rope, and because the hard-
trodden pavement of the prison-yard covered them.

The fine stables of the White Lion stood tenantless, now,
from year's end to year's end. Rats scampered, and bats
squeaked in unlovely ardours of courtship, about the ranges of
empty stalls and cobweb-hung rafters. Yet one ghost from
out the golden age haunted the place still — a lean, withered,
bandy-legged, little stick of a man, arrayed in frayed and
tarnished splendour of sky-blue waist-jacket, silver lace, and
jack-boots of which the soles and upper leathers threatened

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 171

speedy and final divorce. In all weathers this bit of human
wreckage — Jackie Deeds by name — might be seen wandering
aimlesslyabout the vacant yard, or seated upon the bench be-
side the portico of the silent, bow-windowed inn, pulling at a,
too often empty, clay-pipe and spitting automatically.

Over Richard, tender-hearted as yet towards all creacures
whom nature or fortune had treated cavalierly, the decrepit
postboy exercised a fascination. One day, when driving
through the Row with Mary Cathcart, he had succeeded in
establishing relations with Jackie Deeds through the medium
of a half-crown. And now, as he waited beneath the rustling
sycamores, it was with a sensation of quick, yet half-shy,
pleasure, that he saw the disreputable figure lurch out of the
inn yard, stand for a minute shading eyes with hand while
making observations, and then hobble across the street, touch-
ing the peak of a battered, black-velvet cap as it advanced.

" Be 'e come to zee the show, sir ? " the old man coughed
out, peering with dim, blear eyes up into the boy*s fresh face.

*' No, we've come about something from Appleyard's. I — I
didn't know there was a show."

*^ Oh ! hain't there though. Sir Richard ! I tell 'e there be
a prime sight of a show. There be monkeys down town, and
dorgs what dances on their 'inder legs, and gurt iron cages
chock full er wild beastises, by what they tells me."

Dickie, feeling anxiously in his pockets for some coin of
sufficient size to be worthy of Mr. Deeds' acceptance, ejacu-
lated involuntarily : — " Oh ! are there ? I'd give anything to
see them."

" Sixpence 'ud do most er they 'ere shows, I expect. The
wild beastises 'ud run into a shilling may be." — The old post-
boy made a joyless, creaking sound, bearing but slightest
affinity to laughter. " But you 'ud see your way round more'n
a shilling, Sir Richard. A terrible, rich, young gentleman, by
what they tells me."

Something a trifle malicious obtained in this attempt at
jocosity, causing Dickie to bend down rather hastily over the
wheel, and thrust his offering into the crumpled, shaky hands.

" There," he said. " Oh ! it's nothing. I'm so pleased
you — you don't mind. Where do you say this show is ? "

" Gor a'mighty bless 'e, sir," the old man whimpered, with
a change of tone. '' 'Tain't every day poor old Jackie Deeds

172 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

runs across a rich, young gentleman as ull give him 'arf a
crown. Times Is bad, mortal bad — couldn't be much wuss.'*

" Tm so sorry," Richard answered. He felt apologetic, as
though in some manner responsible for the decay of the coach-
ing system and his companion's fallen estate.

" Mortal bad, couldn't be no wuss."

" I'm very sorry. But about the show — where is it please ? "
the boy asked again, a little anxious to change the subject.

" Oh ! that there show. 'Taln't much of a show neither,
by what they tells me."

Mr. Deeds spoke with sudden irritability. Uplifted by the
possession of a half crown, he became contemptuous of the
present, jealous of the past when such coin was more plentiful
with him.

" Not much of a show," he repeated. " The young uns
ull crack up most anything as comes along. But that's their
stoopidness. Never zeed nothing better. Law bless 'e, this
ain't a patch on the shows I've a' zeen In my day. Cock-
fightings, and fellows — wi' a lot er money laid on 'em by the
gentry too — a-pounding of each other till there weren't an
inch above the belt of 'em as weren't bloody. And the Irish
giant, and dwarfs 'ad over from France. They tell me most
Frencheys's made that way. Ole Boney 'isself wasn't much
of a one to look at. And I can mind a calf wi' tv/o 'eads —
^ud eat wI' both mouths at once, and all the food 'ud go down
into the same belly. And a man wi' no arms, never 'ad none,
by what they used to tell me "

" Ah ! " Richard exclaimed quickly.

"No, never 'ad none, and yet 'ud play the drum wi' 'is
toes and fire off a horse pistol. Lor, you would 'er laughed to
'av zeen 'Im. 'E ma^je fine sport for the folks 'e did."

Jackie Deeds had recovered his good-humour. He peered
up into the boy's face again maliciously, and broke into cheer-
less, creaking merriment.

" Gor a'mighty 'as 'Is jokes too," he said. " I'm thinking,
by the curous made creeturs 'e sends along sometimes."

" Chifney," Richard called Imperatively. " Chifney, are
you nearly ready ? We ought to get home. There's a storm
coming up."

" Well, we shall get that matter of the saddle done right
enough, Sir Richard," the trainer remarked presently, as the

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 173

carriage bowled up the street. " Don't be too free with the
whip, sir. — Steady, steady there. — Mind the donkey-cart. —
Bear away to the right. Don't let 'em get above ^-hemselves.
Excuse me, Sir Richard."

He leaned forward and laid both hands quietly on the reins.

" Look here, sir," he said, " I think you'd better let Henry
lead the horses past all this variety business."

The end of the street was reached. On either hand small
red or white houses trend away in a broken line along the edge
of a flat, grass common, backed by plantations of pollarded
oak trees. In the foreground, fringing the broad roadway,
were booths, tents, and vans. And the staring colours of
these last, raw reds and yellows, the blue smoke beating down
from their little stove-pipe chimneys, the dirty white of tent
flaps and awnings, stood out harshly in a flare of stormy sun-
light against the solid green of the oaks and uprolling masses
of black-purple cloud.

Here indeed was the show. But to Richard Calmady's
eyes it lacked disappointingly in attraction. His nerves were
somewhat a-quiver. All the course detail, all the unlovely
foundations, of the business of pleasure were rather distress-
ingly obvious to his sight. A merry-go-round was in full ac-
tivity— wooden horses and most unseaworthy boats describing
a jerky circle to the squeaking of tin whistles and purposeless
thrumpings of a drum. Close by a crop-eared lurcher, tied
beneath one of the vans, dragged choking at his chain and
barked himself frantic under the stones and teasing of a knot
of idle boys. A half-tipsy slut of a woman threatened a child,
who, in soiled tights and spangles, crouched against the muddy
hind-wheel of a wagon, tears dribbling down his cheeks, his
arm raised to ward off the impending blow. From the men-
agerie— an am.orphous huddle of gray tents, ranged behind
a flight of wooden steps leading up to an open gallery hung
with advertisements of the many attractions within — came the
hideous laughter of a hyena, and the sullen roar of a lion
weary of the rows of stolid English faces staring daily, hourly,
between the bars of his foul and narrow cage, heart-sick with
longing for sight of the open, starlit heaven and the white-
domed, Moslem tombs amid the prickly, desert thickets and
plains of clean, hot sand. On the edge of the encampment
horses grazed — sorry beasts for the most part, galled, broken-

174 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

kneed and spavined, weary and heart-sick as the captive lion.
But weary not from idleness, as he. Weary from heavy loads
and hard ♦■raveling and scant provender. Sick of collar and
whip and reiterated curses.

About the tents and booths, across the grass, and along the
roadway, loitered a sad-coloured, country crowd. Even to
the children, it took its pleasure slowly and silently ; save in
the case of a hulking, young carter in a smock-frock, who,
being pretty far gone in liquor, alternately shouted bawdy
songs and offered invitation to the company generally to come
on and have its head punched.

Such were the pictures that impressed themselves upon
Richard's brain as Henry led the dancing carriage-horses up
the road. And it must be owned that from this first sight of
life, as the common populations live it, his soul revolted.
Delicately nurtured, finely bred, his sensibility accentuated by
the prickings of that thorn in the flesh which was so intimate
a part of his otherwise noble heritage, the grossness and bru-
tality of much which most boys of his age have already learnt
to take for granted affected him to the point of loathing.
And more especially did he loathe the last picture presented to
him on the outskirts of the common. At the door of a
gaudily-painted van, somewhat apart from the rest, stood a
strapping lass, tambourine in one hand, tin mug for the hold-
ing of pennies in the other. She wore a black, velvet bodice,
rusty with age, and a blue, silk skirt of doubtful cleanliness,
looped up over a widely distended scarlet petticoat. Rows of
amber beads encircled her brown throat. She laughed and
leered, bold-eyed and coarsely alluring, at a couple of sheepish
country lads on the green below. She called to them, point-
ing over her shoulder with the tin cup, to the sign-board of
her show. At the painting on that board Richard Calmady
gave one glance. His lips grew thin and his face white. He
jerked at the reins, causing the horses to start and swerve.
Was it possible that, as old Jackie Deeds said, God Almighty
had His jokes too, jokes at the expense of His own creation f
That in cynical abuse of human impotence, as a wanton pas-
time. He sent human beings forth into the world thus ludi-
crously defective ? The thought was unformulated. It
amounted hardly to a thought indeed, — was but a blind terror
of insecurity, which, coursing through the boy's mind, filled

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 175

him with agonised and angry pity towards all disgraced fellow-
beings, all enslaved and captive beasts. Dimly he recognised
his kinship to all such.

Meanwhile the carriage bowled along the smooth road and
up the long hill, bordered by fir and beech plantations, which
leads to Spendle Flats. And there, in the open, the storm
came down, in rolling thunder and lashing rain. Tall, shift-
ing, white columns chased each other madly across the bronze
expanse of the moorland. Chifney, mindful of his charge,
hurried Dickie into a greatcoat, buttoned it carefully round
him, offered to drive, almost insisted on doing so. But the
boy refused curtly. He welcomed the stinging rain, the
swirling wind, the swift glare of hghtning, the ache and strain
of holding the pulling horses. The violence of it all heated
his blood as with the stern passion of battle. And under the
influence of that passion his humour changed from agonised
pity to a fierce determination of conquest. He would fight,
he would come through, he would win, he would slay dragons.
Prometheus-like he would defy the gods. Again his thought
was unformulated, little more than the push of young, un-
tamed energy impatient of opposition. But that he could face
this wild mood of nature and control and guide these high-
mettled, headstrong horses gave him coolness and self-confi-
dence. It yielded him assurance that there was, after all, an
immensity of distance between himself and all caged, out-
worn creatures, and that the horrible example of deformity
upon the brazen-faced girl's show-board had really nothing to
do with him. Dickie's last humour was less noble than his
first, it is to be feared. But in all healthy natures, in all those
in whom the love of beauty is keen, there must be in youth
strong repudiation of the brotherhood of suffering. Time
will teach a finer and deeper lesson to those that have faith
and courage to receive it; yet it is well the young should
defy sorrow, hate suffering, gallantly, however hopelessly,
fight.

And the warlike instinct remained by Dickie all that even-

I ing. He was determined to assert himself, to measure his
power, to obtain. While Winter was helping him dress for
dinner he gave orders that his chair should be placed at the

ft bottom of the table.

I " But the colonel sits there, Sir Richard."

176 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Dickie's face did not give in the least.

" He has sat there," he answered rather shortly. " But 1
have spoken to her ladyship, and in future he will sit by her.
ril go down early, Winter. I prefer being in my place when
the others come in."

It must be added that Ormiston accepted his deposition in
the best possible spirit, patting the boy on the shoulder as he
passed him.

^^ Quite right, old chap. I like to see you there. Claim
your own, and keep it."

At which a lump rose in Dickie's throat, nearly causing
him to choke over his first spoonful of soup. But Mary
Cathcart whose kind eyes saw most things, smiled first upon
her lover and then upon him, and began talking to him of
horses, as one sportsman to another. And so Dickie speedily
recovered himself, and grew eager, playing host very prettily
at his own table.

He demanded to sit up to prayers, moreover, and took his
place in the dead Richard Calmady's stall nearest the altar
rails on the left. Next him was Dr. Knott, who had come in
unexpectedly just before dinner. He had the boy a little on
his mind; and, while contemptuous of his own weakness in
the matter, wanted badly to know just how he was. Lady
Calmady had begged him to stay. He could be excellent
company when he pleased. He had laid aside his roughness
of manner and been excellent company to-night. Next him
was Ormiston, while the seats immediately below were occu-
pied by the men-servants. Winter at their head.

Opposite to Richard, across the chapel, sat Lady Calmady.
The fair, summer moonlight streaming in through the east
window spread a network of fairy jewels upon her stately,
gray-clad figure and beautiful head. Beside her was Mary
Cathcart, and then came a range of dark, vacant stalls. And
below these was a long line of women-servants, ranging from
Denny, in rustling, black silk, and Clara, — alert and pretty,
though a trifle tearful, — through many grades and orders,
down to the little scullery-maid, fresh from the keeper's cot-
tage on the Warren — homesick, and half scared by the grancf
gentlemen and ladies in evening-dress, by the strange, lovely
figures in the stained-glass windows, by the great, gold cross
and flowers, and the rich altar-cloth and costly hangings but

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 177

half seen in the conflicting light of the moonbeams and quiv-
ering candles.

John Knott was impressed by the scene too, though hardly
on the same lines as the little scullery-maid. He had long
ago passed the doors of orthodoxy and dogma. Christian
church and heathen temple — could he have had the interest-
ing experience of entering the latter — were alike to him.
The attitude and office of the priest, the same in every age
and under every form of religion, filled him with cynical
scorn. Yet he had to own there was something inexpressibly
touching in the nightly gathering together of this great house-
hold, gentle and simple; and in this bowing before the source
of the impenetrable mystery which surrounds and encloses the
so curiously urgent and vivid consciousness of the individual.
He had to own, too, that there was something inexpressibly
touching in the tones of Julius March's voice as he read of
the young Galilean prophet " going about and doing good " —
simple and gracious record of human tenderness and pity,
upon which, in the course of centuries, the colossal fabric of
the modern Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, has been
built up.

" ' And great multitudes came to Him,' " read Julius,
"'having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb,
maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet,
and He healed them ; insomuch that the multitude marveled
when they saw the dumb to speak, and the maimed to be
whole, and the lame to walk ' "

How simple it all sounded in that sweet, old-world story !
And yet how lamentably, in striving to accomplish just these
same things, his own far-reaching science failed !

"'The maimed to be whole, the lame to walk ' " — invol-
untarily he looked round at the boy beside him.

Richard leaned back in his stall, tired with the long day and
its varying emotions. His eyes were half closed, and his
profile showed pale as wax against the background of dark
woodwork. His eyebrows were drawn into a slight frown,
and his face bore a peculiar expression of reticence. Once
he glanced up at the reader, as though on a sudden a pleasant
thought occurred to him. But the movement was a passing
one. He leaned back in his stall again and folded his arms,
with a movement of quiet pride, almost of contempt.

178 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Later that night, as her custom was, Katherlne opened the
door of Richard's room softly, and entering bent over his bed
in the warm dimness to give him a last look before going to rest
herself. To-night Dickie was awake. He put his arms round
her coaxingly.

"Stay a little, mummy darling," he said. " I am not a bit
sleepy. I want to talk."

Katherine sat down on the edge of the bed. All the mass
of her hair was unbound, and fell in a cloud about her to the
waist. Richard, leaning on one elbow, gathered it together,
held and kissed it. He was possessed by the sense of his mother's
great beauty. She seemed so magnificently far removed from
all that is coarse, spoiled, or degraded. She seemed so superb^
so exquisite a personage. So he gazed at her, kissed her
hair, and gently touched her arms, where the open sleeves
of her white dressing-gown left them bare, in reverential
ecstasy.

Katherine became almost perplexed.

^' My dearest, what is it ? " she asked at last.

" Oh ! it's only that you're so perfect, mother," he said.
" You make me feel so safe somehow. I'm never afraid when
you are there."

" Afraid of what ? " she asked. A hope came upon her that
he had grown nervous of riding, and wanted her to help him
to retire gracefully from the matter. But his next words
undeceived her. He threw himself back against the pillow
and clasped his hands under his head.

"That's just it," he said. "I don't know exactly what
I am afraid of, and yet I do get awfully scared at
times. I suppose, mother, if one's in a good position — the
position we're in, you know — nobody can ill-use one very
much ? "

Lady Calmady's eyes blazed with indignation. " Ill-use
you ? Who has ever dared to hint at, to dream of such a
thing, dear Richard ? "

" Oh, no one — no one ! Only I can't help wondering
about things, you know. And some — some people do get
most awfully ill-used. I can't help seeing that."

Katherine paused before answering. The boy did not look
at her. She spoke with quiet conviction, her eyes gazing out
into the dimness of the room.

THE BREAKING OF DREAMS 179

" 1 know," she said, almost reluctantly. " And perhaps
it is as well you should know it too, though it is sad knowledge.
People are not always very considerate of one another. But
ill-usage cannot touch you, my dearest. You are saved by
love, by position, by wealth."

"You are sure of that, mother ? "

" Sure ? Of course I am sure, darling," she answered.
Yet even while speaking her heart sank.

Richard remained silent for a space. Then he said, with
certain hesitancy : " Mother, tell me, it is true then that I am
rich ? "

"Quite true, Dick."

" But sometimes people lose their money."

Katherine smiled. — " Your money is not kept in a stocking,
dearest."

" I don't suppose it is," the boy said, turning towards her.
*' But don't banks break ? "

" Yes, banks break. But a good many broken banks would
not affect you. It is too long a story to tell you now, Dickie,
but your income is very safe. It would almost need a revolu-
tion to rum you. You are rich now ; and I am able to save
considerable sums for you yearly."

" It's — it's awfully good of you to take so much trouble for
me, mother," he interrupted, stroking her bare arm again
delicately.

To Katherine his half-shy endearments were the most
delicious thing in life — so delicious that at moments she could
hardly endure them. They made her heart too full.

" Eight years hence, when you come of age and I give
account of my stewardship, you will be very rich," she
said.

Richard lay quite still, his eyes again fixed on the dimness.

" That — that's good news," he said at last, drawing a long
breath. " I saw things to-day, mother, while we were driving.
It was nobody's fault. There was a fair with a menagerie and
shows at Farley Row. I couldn't help seeing. Don't ask me
about it, mother. I'd rather forget, if I can. Only it made
me understand that it is safer for any one — well, any one like —
me — don't you know, to be rich."

Richard sat up, flung his arms round her and kissed her
with sudden passion.

i8o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"Beautiful mother, honey-sweet mother/' he cried, '^you've
told me just everything I wanted to know. I won't be afraid
any more." Then he added, in a charming little tone of
authority : " Now you mustn't stay here any longer. You
must be tired. You must go co bed and go to sleep."

BOOK III

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH OUR hero's WORLD GROWS SENSIBLY WIDER

TN the autumn of 1862 Richard Calmady went up to Oxford,
Not through ostentation, but in obedience to the exigencies
of the case, his going was in a somewhat princely sort, so that
the venerable city, moved from the completeness of her
scholarly and historic calm, turned her eyes, in a flutter of
quite mundane excitement, upon the newcomer. Julius
March accompanied Richard. Time and thought had moved
forward ; but the towers and spires of Oxford, her fair cloisters
and enchanting gardens, her green meadows and noble elms,
her rivers, Isis and Cherwell, remained as when Julius too
had been among the young and ardent of her sons. He was
greatly touched by this return to the Holy City of his early
manhood. He renewed old friendships. He reviewed the
past, taking the measure calmly of what life had promised,
what it had given of good. A pleasant house had been secured
in St. Giles' Street ; and a contingent of the Brockhurst house-
hold, headed by Winter, went with the two gentlemen, while
Chaplin and a couple of grooms preceded them, in charge of a
goodly number of horse-boxes.

For that first saddle, fashioned now some six years ago by
Josiah Appleyard of Farley Row, had worked something as near
a miracle as ever yet was worked by pigskin. It was a
singularly ugly saddle, running up into a peak front and back,
furnished with a complicated system of straps and buckles and
— in place of stirrups and stirrup-leathers — with a pair of
contrivances resembling old-fashioned holsters. Mary Cath-

181

i82 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

cart's brown eyes had grown moist on first beholding it. And
Colonel Ormiston had exclaimed, " Good God ! Oh, well,
poor dear little chap, I suppose it's the best we can do for
him." An ugly saddle — yet had Josiah Appleyard ample
reason to skip, goat-like, being glad. For, ugly or not, it
fulfilled its purpose, bringing custom to the maker and happi-
ness and health to the owner of it.

The boy rode fearlessly, while exercise and exertion begot
in him a certain light-heartedness and audacity good to see.
The window-seat of the Long Gallery, the book-shelves of
the library, knew him but seldom now. He was no less
courteous, no less devoted to his mother, no less in admira-
tion of her beauty ; but the young barbarian was well awake
in Dickie, and drove him out of doors, on to the moorland or
into the merry greenwood, with dog, and horse, and gun.
On his well-broken pony he shot over the golden stubble
fields in autumn, brought down his pheasants, stationed at the
edge of the great coverts ; went out for long afternoons, rab-
biting in the warrens and field banks, escorted by spaniels and
retrievers, and keepers carrying lithe, lemon-coloured ferrets
ded up in a bag.

Later, when he was older, — but this tried Katherine some^
what, reminding her too keenly of another Richard Calmady
and days long dead, — Winter, a trifle reluctant at such short-
ening of his own virtuous slumbers, would call Dickie and
dress him, all in the gray of the summer morning ; while, at
the little arched doorway in the west front, Chifney and a
groom with a led horse would await his coming, and the boy
would mount and ride away from the great, sleeping house.
At such times a charm of dewy freshness lay on grass and
woodland, on hill and vale. The morning star grew pale and
vanished in the clear-flashing delight of sunrise, as Richard
rode forth to meet the string of racers ; as he noted the vary-
ing form and fortune of Rattlepate or Sweet Rosemary, of
Yellow Jacket, Morion or Light-o'-Love, over the short fra-
grant turf of the gallop ; as he felt the virile joy which the
strength of the horses and the pounding rush of them as they
swept past him ever aroused in him. Then he would ric^^eon^
by a short cut, to the old, red-brick rubbing-house, crowning
the rising ground on the farther side of the lake, and wait there
to see the finish, talking of professional matters with Chifney

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI i8j

meanwhile ; or, turning his horse's head towards the wide^
distant view, sit silent, drawing near to nature and worship-
ping— with the innocent gladness of a still virgin heart — in the
temple of the dawn.

Life at Oxford was set in a different key. The university
city was well disposed towards this young man of so great
wealth and so strange fortunes ; and Richard was unsuspicious,
and ready enough to meet friendliness half-way. Yet it must
be owned he suffered many bad quarters of an hour. He was,
at once, older in thought and younger in practical experience
than his fellow-undergraduates. He was cut off, of necessity,
from their sports. They would eat his breakfasts, drink his
wine, and show no violent objection to riding his horses.
They were considerate, almost anxiously careful of him, be-
ing generous and good-hearted lads. And yet poor Dick was
perturbed by the fear that they were more at ease without him,
that his presence acted as a slight check upon their genial spirits
and their rattling talk. And so it came about that though his
acquaintances were many, his friends were few. Chief among
the latter was Ludovic Quayle, a younger son of Lord Fallow-
feild — whom that kindly if not very intelligent nobleman had
long ago proposed to export from the Whitney to the Brock-
hurst nursery with a view to the promotion of general cheer-
fulness. Mr. Ludovic Quayle was a rather superfine, young
gentleman, possessed of an excellent opinion of himself, and
a modest opinion of other persons — his father included. But
under his somewhat supercilious demeanour there was a vein
of true romance. He loved Richard Calmady ; and neither
time, nor opposing interests, nor certain black chapters which
had later to be read in the history of life, destroyed or even
weakened that love.

And so Dick, finding himself at sad disadvantage with most
of the charming young fellows about him in matters of play,
turned to matters of work, letting go the barbarian side of life
for a while. In brain, if not in body, he believed himself the
equal of the best of them. His ambition was fired by the de-
sire of intellectual triumph. He would have the success of
the schools, since the success of the river and the cricket- field
were denied him. Not that Richard set any exaggerated value
upon academic honours. Only two things are necessary —
this at least was his code at that period — never to lapse from

i84 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the instincts of high-breeding and honour, and to see just as
much of life, of men and of affairs, as obedience to those in-
stincts permits. Already the sense of proportion was strong
in Richard, fed perhaps by the galling sense of personal de-
formity. Learning is but a part of the whole of man's equip-
ment, and a paltry enough part unless wisdom go along with
it. But the thirst of battle remained in Richard; and in this
matter of learning, at least, he could meet men of his own
age and standing on equal terms and overcome them in fair
fight.

And so, during the last two years of his university course,
he did meet them and overcame, honours falling liberally to
his share. Julius March looked on in pleased surprise at the
exploits of his former pupil. While Ludovic Quayle, with
raised eyebrows and half-tender, half-ironical amusement
relaxing the corners of his remarkably beautiful mouth, would
say : —

" Calmady, you really are a shameless glutton ! How many
more immortal glories, any one of which would satisfy an or-
dinary man, do you propose to swallow ? "

" I suppose it's a bad year," Richard would answer. " The
others can't amount to very much, or, needless to say, I
shouldn't walk over the course."

" A charming little touch of modesty, as far as you yourself
are concerned," Ludovic answered. " But not strikingly flat-
tering to the others. I would rather suppose you abnormally
clever, than all the rest abnormally stupid — for, after all, you
know, am I, my great self, not among the rest ? "

At which Dickie would laugh rather shamefacedly, and say:
— " Oh you ! — why you know well enough you could do any-
thing you liked if you weren't so confoundedly lazy ! "

And, meanwhile, at Brockhurst, as news arrived of these
successes. Lady Calmady's soul received comfort. Her step
was light, her eyes full of clear shining as she moved to and
fro ordering the great house and great estate. She felt repaid
for the bitter pain of parting with her darling, and sending him
forth to face the curious, possibly scornful, world of the uni*
versity city. He had proved himself and won his spurs. And
this solaced her in the solitude and loneliness of her present
life. For her dear friend and companion Marie de Mirancourt
had found the final repose, before seeking that of the con-

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 185

vent. Early one February morning, In the second year of
Richard's sojourn at Oxford, fortified by the rites of the
Church, she had passed the gates of death peacefully, blessing
and blessed. Katherine mourned for her, and v/ould continue
to mourn with still and faithful sorrow, even while welcoming
home her young scholar, hearing the details of his past achieve-
ments and hopes for the future, or entertaining — with all
gracious hospitality — such of his Oxford friends as he elected
to invite to Brockhurst.

It was on one of these last occasions, the young men hav-
ing gone down to the Gun-Room to smoke and discuss the
day's pheasant shooting, that Katherine had kept Julius March
standing before the Chapel-Room fire, and had looked at him,
a certain wistfulness in her face.

" He is happy — don't you think, Julius ? " she said. " He
seems to me really happier, more contented, than I have ever
seen him since his childhood."

"Yes, I also think that," Julius answered. " He has reason
to be contented. He has measured himself against other men
and is satisfied of his own powers."

" Every one admires him at Oxford ? "

"Yes, they admire and envy him. He has been brilliantly
successful."

Katherine drew herself up, clasping her hands behind her,
and smiling proudly as she mused, gazing into the crimson
heart of the burning logs. Then, after a silence, she turned
suddenly to her companion.

" It Is very sweet to have you here at home again, Julius,"^
she said gently. " I have missed you sorely since dearest
Marie de Mirancourt died. Live a little longer than I do,
please. Ah ! I am afraid it Is no small thing that I ask you
to do for my sake, for I foresee that I shall survive to a
lamentably old age. But sacrifice yourself, Julius, In the
matter of living. Less than ever, when the shadows fall, shall
I be able to spare you."

For which words of his dear lady's, though spoken lightly,
half in jest, Julius March gave God great thanks that night.

It v/as about this period that two pieces of news, each prov-
ing eventually to have much personal significance, reached
Lady Calmady from the outside world. The first took the
form of a letter — a rather pensive and tired letter — from her

i86 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

brother, William Ormiston, telling her that his daughter
Helen was about to marry the Comte de Vallorbes, a young
gentleman very well known both to Parisian and Neapolitan
society. The second took the form of an announcement in
the Morning Post^ to the effect that Lady Tobemory, whose
lamented death that paper had already chronicled, had left the
bulk of her not inconsiderable fortune to her god-daughter
Honoria, eldest child of that distinguished officer General St.
Quentin. In both cases Lady Calmady wrote letters of con-
gratulation, in the latter with very sincere and lively pleasure.
She held her cousin. General St. Quentin, in affection for old
sake's sake. Honoria she remembered as a singularly grace-
ful, high-bred, little maiden, fleet of foot as a hind — too fleet
of foot indeed for little Dickie's comfort of mind, and there-
fore banished from the Brockhurst nursery. In the former
case, her congratulations being somewhat conventional, she
added — in her own name and that of Richard — a necklace of
pearls, with a diamond clasp and bars to it, of no mean value.
In the spring of 1865 Richard left Oxford for good, and
took up his residence once more at Brockhurst. But it was
not until the autumn of the following year, when he had
reached the age of three-and-twenty, and had already for some
six months served his Queen and country in the capacity of
Justice of the Peace for the county of Southampton, that any
-event occurred greatly affecting his fortunes, and therefore
worthy to set forth at large in this history.

CHAPTER II

TELLING HOW DICKIE's SOUL WAS SOMEWHAT SICK, AND HOW
HE MET FAIR WOMEN ON THE CONFINES OF A WOOD

RICHARD CALMADY rode homeward through the
autumn woods, and the aspect of them was very lovely.
But their loveliness was hectic, a loveliness as it seemed, at
all events at first sight, of death and burial, rather than of life
and hope. The sky was overcast, and a chill clung to the
stream side and haunted the hollows. The young man's
humour, unfortunately, was only too much in harmony with

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI i8f

the more melancholy suggestions of the scene. For Richard
was by nature something of a poet, though he but rarely wrote
verses, and usually burned them as soon as written, being
scholar enough to know and feel impatient of the " second
best." And this inherent strain of poetry in him tempered
the active and practical side of his character, making wealth
and position, and all those things which the worldly-minded
seek, seem of slight value to him at times. It induced in him>
many and very varying moods. It carried him back often,,
even now in the strength of his young manhood, to the fine
fancies and exquisite unreason of the fairy vi^orld in which
those so sadly ill-balanced footsteps of his had first been set.
To-day had proved, so far, an unlucky one, prolific of war-
fare between his clear brain and all too sensitive heart. For
it was the burden of Richard's temperament — the almost
inevitable result of that ever-present thorn in the flesh — that
he shrunk as a poet, even as a woman, vi^hile as a man, and a
strong one, he reasoned and fought.

It fell out on this wise. He had attended the Quarter
Sessions at Westchurch ; and a certain restlessness, born of
the changing seasons, being upon him, he had ridden. His^
habit, when passing outside the limits of his own property^
was to drive. He became aware — and angrily conscious hi&
groom was aware also — that his appearance afix>rded a spectacle
of the liveliest interest to the passers-by ; that persons of very^
various age and class had stopped and turned to gaze at him v
and that, while crossing the bridge spanning the dark, oily
waters of the canal, in the industrial quarter of the pushing,
wide-awake, county town, he had been the subject of brutal
comment, followed by a hoarse laugh from the collarless throats
of some dozen operatives and bargees loitering thereupon.

The consequence was that the young man arrived in court,
his eyes rather hard and his jaw set. Rich, well-born, not
undistinguished too for his attainments, and only three and
twenty, Dickie had a fine fund of arrogance to draw upon yet.
He drew upon it this morning, rather to the confusion of his.
colleagues upon the bench. Mr. Cathcart, the chairman, was
already present, and stood talking with Mr. Seymour, the
rector of Farley, a shrewd, able parson of the old sporting
type. Captain Fawkes of Water End was there too ; and so-
was Lemuel Image, eldest son of the Mr. Image, sometime

388 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

mayor of Westchurch, who has been mentioned in the early
pages of this chronicle.

In the last twenty years, supported by ever-increasing piles
of barrels, the Image family had mounted triumphantly up-
ward in the social scale. Lemuel, the man in question,
married a poor and distant relation of Lord Aldborough, the
late lord lieutenant of the county ; and had by this, and by a
rather truculent profession of high Tory politics, secured him-
self a seat on the bench. He had given a fancy price, too, for
that pretty, little place, Frodsmill, the grounds of which form
such an exasperating Naboth's vineyard in the heart of the
Newland's property. Neither his person, nor his politics, nor
his absence of culture, found favour in Richard Calmady's
sight. And to-day, being somewhat on edge, the brewer's
large, blustering presence and manner — at once patronising
and servile — struck him as peculiarly odious. Image betrayed
an evil tendency to emphasise his remarks by slapping his
acquaintances upon the back. He was also guilty of suppos-
ing a defect of hearing in all persons older than, or in any
measure denied the absolute plethora of physical vigour so
conspicuous in, himself. He invariably raised his voice in
addressing Richard. In return for which graceful attention
Dickie most cordially detested him.

^^ Image is a bit of a cad, and certainly Calmady makes no
bones about letting him know it," Captain Fawkes remarked
to Mr. Seymour, as they drove back to Farley in the latter's
dog-cart. "Fortunately he has a hide like a rhinoceros, or
we should have had a regular row between them more than
once this morning. Calmady's generally charming ; but I
must say, v/hen he likes, he can be about the most insolent
fellow I've ever met, in a gentleman-like way."

"A great deal of that is simply self-protective," the clergy-
man answered. "It is not difficult to see how it comes about,
when you take his circumstances into account. If I was him,
God forgive me, I know I shouldn't be half so svv^eet tempered.
He bears it wonderfully well, all things considered."

Nor did the disturbing incidents of the day end with the
familiarities of the loud-voiced brewer. The principal case to
be tried was a melancholy one enough — a miserable history or
wayward desire, shame and suffering, followed by a despairing
<;ourse of lie^ and petty thieving to help support the poor baby

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 189

whose advent seemed so wholly a curse. The young mother
— a pretty, desperate creature — made no attempt at deniaL
She owned she had robbed her mistress of a shilling here and
sixpence there, that she had taken now a bit of table silver and
then a garment to the pawn-shop. How could she help it r
Her wages were a trifle, since her character was damaged.
Wasn't it a charity to employ a girl like her at all, so her
mistress said ? And yet the child must live. And Richard
Calmady, sitting in judgment there, with those four other
gentlemen of substantial means and excellent position, sick-
ened as he listened to the sordid details, the relentless ele-
mentary arguments. For the girl, awed and frightened at first,,
grew eloquent in self-defensd. — " She loved him " — he being
a smart young fellow, who, with excellent recommendations
from Chifney, had left the Brockhurst stables some two years^
before, to take service in Westchurch. — " And he always
spoke her fair. Had told her he'd marry her right enough^
after a bit — before God he would. But it would ruin his
chance of first-class places if he married yet. The gentry
wouldn't take any but single m.en of his age. A wife would
stand in his way. And she didn't want to stand in his way —
he knew her better than that. Not but that he reckoned her
just as much his wife as any woman could be. Of course he
did. What a silly she was to trouble about it. And then when
there was no hiding any longer how it was with her, he up and
awayed to London, saying he would make a home for her
there. And he kept on writing for a bit, but he never told her
where to write to him in return, so she couldn't answer. And
then his letters came seldom, and then stopped altogether, and

then — and then "

The girl was rebuked for her much speaking, and so wasting
the time of the court. There were other cases. And Richard
Calmady sickened yet more, recognising in that a parable of
perpetual application. For are there not always other cases f
The tragedy of the individual life reaching its climax seems^
to the chief actor, worthy to claim and hold universal atten-
tion. Yet the sun never stands still in heaven, nor do the
footsteps of men tarry upon earth. No one person may take
up too much space, too much time. The movement of things
is not stayed. The single cry, however bitter, fs drowned in
[the roar of the pushing crowd. The individual, however keen

190 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

his griefs, however heinous the ofFense done him, must make
way for those same other cases. This is the everlasting
law.

And so pained, out of tune, troubled too by smouldering
fires of anger, Richard left Westchurch and his fellow-magis-
trates as early as he decently could. Avoiding the highroad
leading by Newlands and through Sandyficld village, he cut
across country by field lanes and over waste lands to Farley
Row. The wide quiet of the autumn afternoon, the slight
chill in the air, were grateful to him after the noise and close
atmosphere of the court. Yet the young man strove vainly to
think of pleasant things and to regain his serenity. The girl's
tear-blotted face, the tones of her voice, haunted him. Six
■weeks' imprisonment. The sentence, after all, was a light
one. Yet who was he, who were those four other well-to-do
gentlemen, that they should judge her at all ? How could they
measure the strength of the temptation which had beset her?
If temptation is strong enough, must not the tempted of neces-
sity yield ? If the tempted does not yield, is that not merely
proof that the temptation was not strong enough ? The whole
thing appeared to him a matter of mathematics or mechanics.
Given a greater weight than it can carry, the rope is bound to
break. And then for those who have not felt the strain to
blame the rope, punish the rope ! It seemed to Richard, as he
rode homeward, that human justice is too often a very comedy
of injustice. It all appeared to him so exceedingly foolish.
And yet society must be protected. Other pretty, weak, silly
creatures must be warned, by such rather brutal object lessons,
■not to bear bastards or pawn their mistresses' spoons.

'' ^ ye ne sals pas ce que c*est que la vie eternelle^ mais celle p' est
une mauvaise plaisanteruy *' Dickie quoted to himself some-
what bitterly.

He turned aside at Farley Row, following the narrow road
that runs behind the houses in the main street and the great,
vacant stables and outbuildings of the White Lion Inn. And
here, as though the immediate displeasures of this ill-starred
day were insufficient, memory arose and recalled other dis-
pleasures of long ago. Recalled old Jackie Deeds lurching out
of that same inn yard, empty pipe in mouth, greedy of alms.
Recalled the old postboy's ugly morsel of profanity — " God
Almighty had His jokes too." And, at that, the laughter of

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 191

those loafers upon the canal bridge saluted Richard's cars once
more, as did the loud, familiar phrases of Mr. Lemuel Image^
the Westchurch brewer.

Before him the flat expanse of Gierke's Green opened out ;,
and the turf of it — beaded with dew which the frail sunshine
of the early morning had failed to burn up — was crossed by
long tracks of darker green, where flocks of geese had wan-
dered over its misty surface. Here the traveling menagerie
and all the booths of the fair had been stationed. Memory
rigged up the tents once more, painted the vans in crude^
glaring colours, set drums beating and merry-go-rounds turn-
ing, pointed a malicious finger at the sign-board of a certain-
show. How many times Richard had passed this way in the
intervening years, and remembered in passing, yet thrown all
hurt of remembrance from him directly and lightly 1 To-day
it gripped him. He put his horse into a sharp trot.

Skirting the edge of the green, he rode down a rutted cart
lane — farm buildings and well-filled rickyards on the left — and
forded the shallow, brown stream which separates the parish
of Farley from that of Sandyfield and the tithing of Brock-
hurst.

Ahead lay the wide, rough road, ending in a broken avenue
of ancient oaks, and bordered on either hand by a strip of
waste land overgrown with coarse grasses and low thickets of
maple — which leads up tc the entrance of the Brockhurst
woods. Over these hung a soft, bluish haze, making them
appear vast in extent, and upraising the dark ridge of the fir
forest, which crowns them, to mountain height against the
western sky. A covey of partridges ran up the sandy road
before Richard's horse ; and, rising at last, with a long-drawn
whir of wings, skimmed the top of the bank and dropped into
the pale stubble field on the other side of it. He paused at the
head of the avenue while the keeper's wife — in lilac apron and
sunbonnet — ran out to open the big, white gate; the dogs^
meantime, from their kennels under the Spanish chestnuts
upon the slope behind her gabled cottage, setting up a
vociferous chorus. Thus heralded, Richard passed into the
whispering, mysterious stillness of the autumn woods.

The summer had been dry and fine, the foliage unusually-
rich and heavy, all the young wood ripening well. Conse^
quently the turn of the leaf was very brilliant that year. The

192 SIR RICHARD CALMADY ^

-sweetly, sober, English landscape seemed to have run mad and
decked itself, as for a masquerade, in extravagant splendours ot
colour. The smooth-stemmed beeches had taken on every
tint from fiery brown, through orange and amber, to verdigris
green touching latest July shoots. The round-headed oaks,
practising even in carnival time a measure of restraint, had
arrayed themselves in a hundred rich, finely-gradated tones of
russet and umber. While, here and thei*e, a tall bird-cherry,
waxing wanton, had clothed itself like the Woman of Babylon
in rose-scarlet from crown to lowest black-barked twig.
Higher up, the larch plantations rose in crowds of butter-
coloured spires. Amethystine and blood-red, white-spotted
toadstools, in little companies, pushed through the light soil
on either side the road. Trailing sprays of bramble glowed as
flame. Rowan berries hung in heavy coral bunches, and the
dogwood spread itself in sparse china-pink clusters. Only the
undergrowth of crooked alders, in swampy, low-lying places,
kept its dark, purplish green ; and the light foliage of the ash
waved in shadowy pallor against its knobbed and knotted
branches ; and the ranks of the encircling firs retained their
solemn habit, as though in protest against the universal riot.

The stream hidden away in the hazel coppice gurgled and
murmured. Beech-masts pattered down, startling the stillness
as with a sudden dropping of thunder rain. Squirrels, disturbed
in the ingathering of their winter store, whisked up the boles
of the great trees and scolded merrily from the forks of the
high branches. Shy wild things rustled and scampered unseen
through the tangled undergrowth and beds of bracken. While
that veil of bluish haze touched all the distance of the land-
scape with a delicate mystery, and softly blotted the vista of
each wide shooting drive, or winding pathway, to left and
right.

And as Richard rode onward, leaves gay even in death
fluttering down around him, his mood began to suffer change.
He ceased to think and began to feel merely. First came a
dreamy delight in the beauty of the scene about him. Then
the sense of mystery grew upon him — of mystery, not merely
hanging in the delicate haze, but dwelling in the endless variety
of form and colour which met his eyes, of mystery inviting
him in the soft, multitudinous voices of the woodland. And
as the minutes passed this sense grew increasingly provocative,

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

193

became too increasingly elusive. The light leapt into Dickie's
eyes. He smiled to himself. He was filled with unreasoning
expectation. He seemed — it was absurd, yet very charming —
to be playing hide-and-seek with some glad secret which at any
instant might be revealed to him. It murmured to him in the
brook. It scolded at him merrily with the scolding squirrels.
It startled the surrounding stillness, with the down pattering
beech-masts and fluttering of leaves. It eluded him deftly,
rustling av/ay unseen through the green and gold of the
bracken. Lastly when, reaching the summit of the ridge of
hill, he entered upon the levels of the great table-land, it hailed
him in the long-drawn sighing of the fir forest. For a wind,
suddenly awakened, swept towards him from some far distance,
neared, broke overhead, as summer waves upon a shingly
beach, died in delicious whispers, only to sweep up and break
and die again. Meanwhile the gray pall of cloud parted in
the west, disclosing spaces of faint yet clearest blue, and the
declining sun, from behind dim islands of shifting vapour, sent
forth immense rays of mild and misty light.

Richard laughed involuntarily to himself. For there was a
fantastic, curiously alluring influence in all this. It spoke to
him as in delicate persuasion. His sense of expectation in-
tensified. He would not ride homeward and shut himself
within four walls just yet ; but yield himself to the wooing of
these fair sylvan divinities; to that of the spirit of the even-
ing wind, of the softly shrouding haze, and of the broadening
sunlight, a little longer.

A turf-ride branches away to the left, leading along a narrow
outstanding spur of table-land to a summer-house, the prospect
from which is among the noted beauties of Brockhurst. This
summer-house or Temple, as it has come to be called. Is an
octagonal structure. Round-shafted pillars rise at each pro-
jecting angle. In the recesses between them are low stone
benches, save in front where an open colonnade gives upon
the view. The roof is leaded, and surmounted by a wooden
ball and tall, three-sided spike. These last, as well as the
plastered, windowless walls are painted white. Within, the
hollow of the dome is decorated in fresco, with groups of gaily
clad ladies and their attendant cavaliers, with errant cupids,
garlands of flowers, trophies of rather impossible musical in-
struments, and cages full of imprisoned, and therefore doubt-

194 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

less very naughty, loves. The colours have grown faint by
action of insweeping wind and weather; but this lends a
pathos to the light-hearted, highly-artificial art, emphasising the
contrast between it and its immediate surroundings.

For the Temple stands on a platform of turf at the extreme
point of the spur of table-land. The hillside, clothed with
heather and bracken, fringed lower down with a coppice of
delicate birches, falls steeply away in front and on either hand.
Outstretched below, besides the panorama of the great woods,
lies all the country about Farley, on to Westchurch, and beyond
again — pasture and cornlands, scattered hamlets and red-roofed
farms half-hidden among trees, the glint of streams set in the
vivid green of water-meadows, and soft blue range behind
range of distance to that pale uprising of chalk down in the
far south. Upon the right, some quarter of a mile away,
blocking the end of an avenue of ancient Scotch firs, the
eastern facade of Brockhurst House shows planted proudly
upon the long gray and red lines of the terrace.

Richard checked his horse, pausing to look for a moment at
that well-beloved home. Then musing, he let his horse go
forward along the level turf-ride. The glistering, gray dome
and white columns of the Temple standing out against the
spacious prospect — the growing brightness of this last, still
chastened by the delicious autumn haze— captivated his im-
agination. There was, seen thus, a simplicity and distinction
altogether classic in the lonely building. To him it appeared not
unfit shrine for the worship of that same all-pervasive spirit of
mystery, not unfit spot for the revelation of that same glad, yet
cunningly elusive secret, of which he suff'ercd the so fond
obsession.

And so it was that when, coming abreast of the building,
the sound of young voices — women's voices — and finely
modulated laughter saluted his ear, though startled for no
stranger had the right of entry to the park, he was by no
means displeased. This seemed but part of the all-pervasive
magic of this strange afternoon. Richard smiled at the
phantasies of his own mood •, yet he forgot to be shy, forgot
the distressing self-consciousness which made him shrink from
the observation of strangers — specially those of the other sex.
The adventure tempted his fancy. Even familiar things had
put on a new and beguiling vesture in the last half hour, so

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 195

there were miracles abroad, perhaps. Anyhow he would satisfy
himself as to the aspect of those sweet voiced and, as yet, un-
seen trespassers. He let his horse go forward slowly across
the platform of turf.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH RICHARD CONFIRMS ONE JUDGMENT AND REVERSES

ANOTHER

t-XOW magnificently your imagination gallops when it
once gets agoing. Here you are bearing away the
spoils, when the siege is not yet even begun — never will be, I
venture to hope, for I doubt if this would be a very honour-
able "

The speaker broke ofF abruptly, as the shadow of horse and
rider lengthened upon the turf. And, during the silence
which followed, Richard Calmady received an impression at
once arresting and subtly disquieting.

A young lady, of about his own age, leaned against one of
the white pillars of the colonnade. Her attitude and costume
were alike slightly unconventional. She was unusually tall,
and there was a lazy, almost boyish indifference and grace in
the pose of her supple figure and the gallant carriage of her
small head. She wore a straight, pale gray-green jacket, into
the pockets of which her hands were thrust. Her skirt, of the
same colour and material, hung in straight folds to her feet,
being innocent alike of trimming and the then prevailing
fashion of crinoline. Further, she wore a little, round mata-
dor's hat, three black pompons planted audaciously upstanding
above the left ear. Her eyes, long in shape and set under
straight, observant brows, appeared at first sight of the same
clear, light, warm brown as her hair. Her nose was straight,
rather short, and delicately square at the tip. While her face,
unlined, serenely, indeed triumphantly youthful, was quite
colourless and sufficiently thin to disclose fine values of bone
in the broad forehead and the cutting of jaw and check and
chin.

In that silence, as she and Richard Calmady looked full at

196 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

one another, he apprehended in her a baffling element, a some-
thing untamed and remote, a freedom of soul, that declared
itself alike in the gallantries and severities of her dress, her
attitude, and all the lines of her person. She bore relation to
the glad mystery haunting the fair autumn evening. She also
bore relation to the chill haunting the stream-side and the
deep places of the woods. And her immediate action em-
phasised this last likeness in his mind. When he first beheld
her she was bright, with a certain teasing insouciance. Then,
for a minute, even more, she stood at gaze, as a hind does
suddenly startled on the edge of the covert — her head raised,
her face keen with inquiry. Her expression changed, became
serious, almost stern. She recoiled, as in pain, as in an ap-
proach to fear — this strong, nymphlike creature.

" Helen," she called aloud, in tones of mingled protest and
warning. And thereupon, without more ado, she retired, nay,
fled, into the sheltering, sun-warmed interior of the Temple.

At this summons her companion, who until now had stood
contemplating the wide view from the extreme verge of the
platform, wheeled round. For an appreciable time she, too,
looked at Richard Calmady, and that haughtily enough, as
though he, rather than she, was the intruder. Her glance
traveled unflinchingly dowm from his bare head and broad
shoulders to that pocket-like appendage — as of old-fashioned
pistol holsters — on either side his saddle. Swiftly her bearing
changed. She uttered an exclamation of unfeigned and un-
alloyed satisfaction — a little joyful outcry, such as a child will
make on discovery of some lost treasure.

" Ah ! it is you — you," she said, laughing softly, while she
moved forward, both hands extended. Which hand, by the
same token, she proposed to bestow on Dickie remained mat-
ter for conjecture, since in the one she carried a parasol with a
stafF-like gold and tortoise-shell handle to it, and in the other,
between the first and second fingers, a cigarette, the blue
smoke of which curled upward in transparent spirals upon the
clear, still air.

As the lady of the gray-green gown retired precipitately
within the Temple, a wave of hot blood passed over Richard's
body. For notwithstanding his three-and-twenty years, his
not contemptible mastery of many matters, and that same
honourable appointment of Justice of the Peace for the county

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 197

of Southampton, he was but a lad yet, with all a lad's quick-
ness of sensitive shame and burning resentment. The girl's
repulsion had been obvious — that instinctive repulsion, as poor
Dickie's too acute sympathies assured him, of the whole for
the maimed, of the free for the bound, of the artist for some
jarring colour or sound which mars an otherwise entrancing
harmony. And the smart of all this was, to him, doubly
salted by the fact that he, after all, was a man, his critic
merely a woman. The bitter mood of the earlier hours of the
day returned upon him. He cursed himself for a doting fool.
Who was he, indeed, to seek revelation of glad secrets, cherish
fair dreams and tempt adventures ?

Consequently it fell out when that other lady — she of the
cigarette — advanced thus delightfully towards him, Richard's
face was white with anger, and his lips rigid with pain — a
rigidity begotten of the determination that they should not
tremble in altogether too unmanly fashion. Sometimes it is
very sad to be young. The fiesh is still very tender, so that a
scratch hurts more than a sword-thrust later. Only, let it be
remembered, the scratch heals readily ; while of the sword-
thrust we die, even though at the moment of receiving it we
seem not so greatly to suffer. And unquestionably as Dickie
sat there, on his handsome horse, hat in hand, looking down
at the lady of the cigarette, the hurt of that lately received
scratch began quite sensibly to lessen. For her eyes, their
first unsparing scrutiny accomplished, rested on his with a
strangely flattering and engaging insistence.

" But this is the very prettiest piece of good fortune ! " she
exclaimed. " Had I arranged the v/hole matter to suit my
own fancy it could not have turned out more happily."

Her tone was that of convincing sincerity ; while, as she
spoke, the soft colour came and went in her cheeks, and her
lips parting showed little, even teeth daintily precious as a row
of pearls. The outline of her face was remarkably pure — in
shape an oval, a trifle wide in proportion to its length. Her
eyebrows were arched, the eyelids arched also — very thin,
showing the movement of the eyeballs beneath them, droop-
mg slightly, with a sweep of dark lashes at the outer corner.
It struck Richard that she bore a certain resemblance to his
mother, though smaller and slighter in build. Her mouth was
less full, her hair fairer — soft, glistening hair of ail the many

198 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

shades of heather honey-comb, broken wax and sweet, heady
liquor alike. Her hands, he remarked, were very finished —
the fingers pointed, the palms rosy. The set of her black,
velvet coat revealed the roundness of her bust. The broad
brim of her large, black hat, slightly upturned at the sides,
and with sweeping ostrich plumes as trimming to it, threw
the upper part of her charming face into soft shadow. Her
heavy, dove-coloured, silk skirts stood out stiffly from her waist,
declaring its slenderness. The few jewels she wore were of
notable value. Her appearance, in fact, spoke the last word
of contemporary fashion in its most refined application. She
was a great lady, who knew the world and the worth of it.
And she was absolute mistress both of that knowledge, and of
herself — notwithstanding those outstretched hands, and outcry
of childlike pleasure, — there, perhaps, lay the exquisite flat-
tery of this last to her hearer ! She was all this, and some-
thing more than all this. Something for which Dickie, his
heart still virgin, had no name as yet. It was new to his ex-
perience. A something clear, simple, and natural, as the
sunlight, and yet infinitely subtle. A something ravishing, so
that you wanted to draw it very close, hold it, devour it. Yet
something you so feared, you needs must put it from you, so
that, faint with ecstasy, standing at a distance, you might bow
yourself and humbly worship. But such extravagant exercises
being, in the nature of his case, physically as well as socially
inadmissible, the young man was constrained to remain seated
squarely in the saddle — that singularly ungainly saddle, more-
over, with holster-like appendages to it — while he watched
her, wholly charmed, curious and shy, carried indeed a little
out of himself, waiting for her to make further disclosures,
since he felt absurdly slow and unready of speech.

Nor was he destined to wait in vain. The fair lady ap-
peared agreeably ready to declare herself, and that with the
finest turns of voice and manner, with the most coercive va-
riety of appeal, pathos, caprice, and dignity.

"I know on the face of it I have not the smallest right to
have taken possession in this way," she continued. " It is the
frankest impertinence. But if you realised how extremely I
am enjoying myself, you could not fail to forgive me. All
this park of yours, all this nature," she turned sideways,
sketching out the great view with a broad gesture of the cigar-

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 199

ette and graceful hand that held it, " all this is divinely lovely.
It is wiser to possess oneself of it in an illicit manner, to defy
the minor social proprieties and unblushingly to steal, than
not to possess oneself of it at all. If you are really hungry,
you knovi^, you learn not to be too nice as to the ways and
means of acquiring sustenance."

" And you were really hungry ? " Richard found himself
saying, as he feared rather blunderingly. But he wanted, so
anxiously, the present to remain the present — wanted to con-
tinue to watch her, and to hear her. She turned his head.
How then could he behave otherwise than with stupidity ?

" La ! la ! *' she replied, laughing indulgently, and thereby
enchanting him still more ; " what must your experience of
life be if you suppose one gets a full meal of divine loveliness
every day in the week ? For my part, I am not troubled with
any such celestial plethora, believe me. I was ravening, I tell
you, positively ravening."

" And your hunger is satisfied ? " he asked, still as he feared
blunderingly, and with a queer inward movement of envy to-
wards the wide view she looked upon, and the glory of the sun-
set which dared touch her hair.

" Satisfied ? " she exclaimed. " Is one's hunger for the di-
vinely lovely ever satisfied ? Just now I have stayed mine
with the merest mouthful — as one snatches a sandwich at a
railway buffet. And directly I must get into the train again,
and go on with my noisy, dusty, stifling journey. Ah ! you
are very fortunate to live in this adorable and restful place ; to
see it in all its fine drama of changing colour and season, year
in and year out."

She dropped the end of her cigarette into a little sandy de-
pression in the turf, and drawing aside her silken skirts, trod
out the red heart of it neatly with her daintily shod foot. Just
then the other lady, she of the gray-green gown, came from
within the shelter of the Temple, and stood between the white
pillars of the colonnade. Dick's grasp tightened on the han-
dle of the hunting-crop lying across his thigh.

"Am I so very fortunate ? " he said, almost involuntarily.

His companion looked up, smiling, her eyes dwelling on his
with a strange effect of intimacy, wholly flattering, wholly, in-
deed, distracting to common sense.

" Yes — you are fortunate/' she answered, speaking slowly,.

200 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"And some day, Richard, I think you will come to know
that."

Sudden comprehension, sudden recognition struck the young
man — very literally struck him a most unwelcome buffet.

'*• Oh ! I see — I understand," he exclaimed, " you are my
cousin — you are Madame de Vallorbes."

For a moment his sense of disappointment was so keen, he
was minded to turn his horse and incontinently ride away.
The misery of that episode of his boyhood set its tooth wcrj
shrewdly in him even yet. It seemed the most cruelly iron-
ical turn of fate that this entrancing, this altogether worship-
ful, stranger should prove to be one and the same as the little
dancer of long ago with blush-roses in her hat.

But though the colour deepened somewhat in the lady's
cheeks, she did not lower her eyes, nor did they lose their
smiling importunity. A little ardour, indeed, heightened the
charm of her manner — an ardour of delicate battle, as of one
whose honour has been ever so slightly touched.

" Certainly, I am your cousin, Helen de Vallorbes," she re-
plied. " You are not sorry for that, Richard, are you ? At
this moment I am increasingly glad to be your cousin — though
not perhaps so very particularly glad to be Helen de Vallorbes."
Then she added, rapidly : — " We are here in England for a few
weeks, my father and I. Troublesome, distressing things had
happened, and he perceived I needed change. He brought me
away. London proved a desert and a dust-heap. There was
no solace, no distraction from unpleasant thoughts to be found
there. So we telegraphed and came down last night to the
kind people at Newlands. Naturally my father wanted to see
Aunt Katherine. I desired to see her also, well understood,
for I have heard so much of her talent and her great beauty.
But I knew they — the brother and sister — would wish to speak
pf the past and find their happiness in being very sad about it
rail. At our age —yours and mine — the sadness of any past
one may possess is a good deal too present with one still to af-
ford in the least consoling subject of conversation." Madame
de Vallorbes spoke with a certain vehemence. ^' Don't you
jhink so, Richard ? " she demanded.

And Richard could but answer, very much out of his heart,
that he did indeed think so.

She observed him a moment, and then her tone softened*

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 201

The colour deepened yet more in her cheeks. She became at
once prettily embarrassed and prettily sincere.

" And then, to tell you quite the truth, I am a trifle afraid
of Aunt [Catherine. I have always wanted to come here and
to see you, but — it is an absurd confession to make — I have
been scared at the idea of meeting Aunt Katherine, and that is
the real reason why I made Honoria take refuge with me in
this lovely park of yours, instead of going on with my father
to the house. There is a legend, a thrice accursed legend in
our family, — my mother employs it even yet when she pro-
poses to reduce me to salutary depths of humility — that I
came, — she brought me — here, once, long ago, when I was a
child, and that I was fiendishly naughty, that I behaved
odiously."

Madame de Vallorbes stretched out her hands, presenting
the rosy palms of them in the most engaging manner.

" But it can't — it can't be true," sh'" protested. " Why, in
the name of all folly, let alone all common decency, should I
behave odiously ? It is not like me. I love to please, I love
to have people care for me. And so I cannot but believe the
legend is the malign invention of some nurse or governess,
whom, poor woman, I probably plagued handsomely enough
in her day, and who, in revenge, rigged up this detestable
rscarecrow with which to frighten me. Then, moreover, I
have not the faintest recollection of the affair, and one gener-
ally has an only too vivid memory of one's ov/n sins. Surely,
mon cher cousin^ surely I am innocent in your sight, as in my
own ? You do not remember the episode either ? "

Whereupon Dickie, looking down at her, — and still en-
chanted notwithstanding his so sinister discovery, being first,
and always a gentleman, and secondly, though as yet uncon-
sciously, a lover, — proceeded to lie roundly. Lied, too, with
a notable cheerfulness, born as cheerfulness needs must be of
€very act of faith and high generosity.

" I remember it ? Of course not," he said. " So let the
legend be abolished henceforth and forevermore. Here, once
and for all, Cousin Helen, we combine to pull dov/n and bury
that scarecrow."

Madame de Vallorbes clapped her hands softly and laughed.
And her laughter, having the merit of being perfectly genuine
— for the young man very really pleased her fancy — was like-

202 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

wise very infectious. Richard found himself laughing too, he
knew not why, save that he was glad of heart.

" And now that matter being satisfactorily disposed of, you
will come to Brockhurst often," he said. It seemed to him
that a certain joyous equality had been established between
him and his divinity, both by his repudiation of all former
knowledge of her, and by their moment of laughter. He be-
gan fearlessly to make her little offerings. " Do you care
about riding ? I am afraid there is not much to amuse you at
Brockhurst ; but there are always plenty of horses."

" And I adore horses."

" Do you care about racing ? We've some rather pretty
things in training this year, I should like awfully to show
them to you."

But here the conversation, just setting forth in so agreeable
a fashion, suffered interruption. For the other lady, she of the
gray-green gown, sauntered forward from the Temple. The
carriage of her head was gallant, her air nonchalant as ever ; but
her expression was grave, and the delicate thinness of her face
appeared a trifle accentuated. She came up to Madame de Val-
lorbes and passed her hand through the latter's arm caressingly.

" You know, really, Helen, we ought to go, if we are not
to keep your father and the carriage waiting." — Then she
looked up with a certain determined effort at Richard Cal-
mady. " We promised to meet Mr. Ormiston at the first
park gate," she added in explana-'on. " That is nearly a mile
from here, isn't it ? "

" About three-quarters — hardly that," he answered. Her
eyes were not brown, he perceived, but a clear, dim green, as
the soft gloom in the under-spaces of a grove of ilexes. They
affected him as fearlessly observant — eyes that could judge
both men and things and could also keep their own counsel.

" Will you give your mother Honoria St. Quentin's love,
please," she went on. " I stayed here with her for a couple
of days the year before last, while you were at Oxford. She
was very good to me. Now, Helen, come "

" I shall see you again," Richard cried to the lady of the
cigarette. But his horse, which for some minutes had been
increasingly fidgety, backed away down the hillside, and he
could not catch the purport of her answer. To the lady of
the gray-green gown and eyes he said nothing at all.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 203

CHAPTER IV

JULIUS MARCH BEARS TESTIMONY

SO you really wish me to ask them both to come, Rich-
ard ? "
Lady Calmady stood on the tiger-skin before the Gun-
Room hearth. Upon the said hearth a merry, little fire of
pine logs clicked and chattered. Even here, on the dry up-
land, the night air had an edge to it; while in the valleys
there would be frost before morning, ripening that same splen-
dour of autumn foliage alike to greater glory and swifter fall.
And the snap in the air, working along with other unwonted
influences, made Katherine somewhat restless this evening.
Her eyes were dark with unspoken thought. Her voice had
a ring in it. The shimmering, black, satin dress and fine lace
she wore gave a certain magnificence to her appearance. Her
whole being was vibrant. She was rather dangerously alive.
Her elder brother's unlooked-for advent had awakened her
strangely from the reserve and stately monotony of her daily
existence, had shaken even, for the moment, the completeness
of the dominion of her fixed idea. She ceased, for the mo-
ment, to sink the whole of her personality in the maternal
relationship. Memories of her youth, passed amid the varied
interests of society and of the literary and political world of
Paris and London, assailed her. All those other Katherines,
in short, whom she might have been, and who had seemed to
drop away from her, vanishing phantom-like before the uncom-
promising realities of her husband's death and her child's
birth, crowded about her, importuning her with vague desires,
vague regrets. The confines of Brockhurst grew narrow,
while all that which lay beyond them called to her. She
craved, almost unconsciously, a wider sphere of action. She
longed to obtain, and to lend a hand in the shaping of events
and making of history. Even the purest and most devoted
among women — possessing the doubtful blessing of a measure
of intellect — are subject to such vagrant heats, such uprisings

204 SIR RICHARD CaLMADY

of personal ambition, specially during the dangerous decade
when the nine-and-thirtieth year is past.

Meanwhile Richard's answer to her question v/as un-
fortunately somewhat over-long in coming, for the young man
was sunk in meditation and apparently oblivious of her pres-
ence. He leaned back in the long, low armchair, his hands
clasped behind his head, the embroidered rug drawn about his
waist, a venerable, yellow-edged, calf-bound volume lying face
downwards on his lap. While young Camp — young no
longer, full of years indeed beyond the allotted portion of his
kind — reposed, outstretched and snoring, on the all-too-wide
space of rug and chair-seat at his feet. And this indifference,
both of man and dog, grew irksome to Lady Calmady. She
moved across the shining yellow and black surface of the
tiger-skin and straightened the bronzes of Vinedresser and
Lazy Lad standing on the high chimneypiece.

" My dear, it grows late,'' she said. " Let us settle this
matter. If your uncle and cousin are to come, I must send
a note over to Newlands to-morrow before breakfast. Re-
member I have no choice in the matter. I leave it entirely to
you. Tell me seriously what you wish."

Richard stretched himself, turning his head in the hollow
of his hands, and shrugged his shoulders slightly.

" That is exactly what I would thank you so heartily to tell
me," he answered. " Do I, or don't I seriously wish it ? I
give you my word, mother, I don't know."

" Oh ; but, my dearest, that is folly ! You must have in-
clination enough, one way or the other, to come to a decision.
I was careful not to commit myself. It is still easy not to
ask them without being guilty of any discourtesy."

" It isn't that," Richard said. " It is simply that being
anything but heroic I am trying of two evils to choose the
least. I should like to have my uncle — and Helen here im-
mensely. But If the visit wasn't a success I should be pro-
portionately disappointed and vexed. So is it worth the risk f
Disappointments are sufficiently abundant anyhow. Isn't it
slightly imbecile to run a wholly gratuitous risk of adding to
their number ? "

Then the fixed idea began stealthily, yet surely, to reassert
its dominion ; for there was a perceptible flavour of discour-
agement in the young man's speech.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 205

*^ Dickie, there is nothing wrong, is there, — nothing the
matter, to-night ? "

" Oh, dear no, of course not ! " he answered, half closing
his eyes. " Nothing in the world's the matter."

He unclasped his hands, leaned forward and patted the bull-
dog lying across the rug at his feet. " At least nothing more
than usual, nothing more than the abiding something which
always has been and always will be the matter,"

" Ah, my dear ! " Katherine cried softly.

"I've just been reading Burton's Anatomy here," he went
on bending down, so that his face was hidden, while he pulled
the dog's soft ears. " He assures all — whom it may concern
— that ' bodily imperfections do not a whit blemish the soul
or hinder the operations of it, but rather help and much in-
crease it.' There, Camp, poor old man, don't start — it's
nothing worse than me. I wonder if the elaborate pains
which have been taken through generations of your ancestors
to breed you into your existing and very royal hideousness —
your flattened nose and perpetual grin, for instance — do help
and much increase the operations of your soul ! "

He looked up suddenly.

" What do you think, mother ? "

"I think — think, my darling," she said, "that perhaps
neither you nor I are quite ourselves to-night."

" Oh, well I've had rather a beastly day ! " Richard
dropped back against the chair cushions again, clasping his
hands behind his head. " Or I've seemed to have it, which
comes practically to much the same thing. I confess I have
been rather hipped lately. I suppose it's the weather.
You're not really in a hurry, mother, are you ? Come and sit
down."

And obediently Katherine drew forward a chair and sat
beside him. Those uprisings of vagrant desire still struggled,
combating the dominion of the fixed idea. But the struggle
grew faint and fainter. And then, for a measurable time,
Richard fell silent again while she waited. Verily there is no
sharper discipline for a woman's proud spirit, than that ad-
ministered, often quite unconsciously, by the man whom she
loves.

" We gave a wretched girl six weeks to-day for robbing her
mistress," he remarked at last. " It was a flagrant case, so I

2o6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

suppose we were justified. In fact I don't see how we could
have done otherwise. But it went against me awfully, all the
same. She has a child to support. Jim Gould got her into
trouble and deserted her, like a cowardly, young blackguard.
However, it's easy to be righteous at another person's expense.
Perhaps I should have done the same in his place. I wonder
if I should ? "—

" My dear, we need hardly discuss that point, I think,"
Lady Calmady said.

Richard turned his head and smiled at her.

" Poor dear mother, do I bore you ? But it is so comfort-
able to grumble. I know it's selfish. It's a horrid bad
habit, and you ought to blow me up for it. But then,
mother, take it all round, really I don't grumble much, do I ? "

" No, no ! " Katherine said quickly. ^' Indeed, Dickie,
you don't."

" I have been awfully afraid though, lately, that I do grumble
more than I imagine," he went on, straightening his head,
while his handsome profile showed clear cut against the danc-
ing brightness of the firelight. " But it's almost impossible
always to carry something about with you which — which you
hate, and not let it infect your attitude of mind and, in a de-
gree, your speech. Twenty or thirty years hence it may
prove altogether sufficient and satisfactory to know " — his lips
worked, obliging him to enunciate his words carefully —
"that bodily imperfections do not a whit blemish the soul or
hinder its operations — are, in short, an added means of grace.
Think of it ! Isn't it a nice, neat, little arrangement, sort of
spiritual consolation stakes ! Only I'm afraid I'm some two
or three decades on the near side of that comfortable conclu-
sion yet, and I find "

Richard shifted his position, letting his arms drop along the
chair arms with a little thud. He smiled again, or at all
events essayed to do so.

" In fact, I find it's beastly difficult to care a hang about
your soul, one way or another, when you clearly perceive your
body's making you the laughing-stock of half the people —
why, mother, sweet dear mother, — what is it ? "

For Lady Calmady's tv/o hands had closed down on his
hand, and she bowed herself above them as though smitten
with sharp pain.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 207

li

Pray don't be distressed," he went on. " I beg your
pardon. I wasn't thinking what I was saying, I'm an ass.
It's nothing I tell you but the weather. You're all a lot too
good to me and indulge me too much, and I grow soft, and
then every trifle rubs me the wrong way. I'm a regular spoilt
child — I know it and a jolly good spanking is what I deserve.
Burton, here, declares that the autumnal, like the vernal,
equinox breeds hot humours and distempers in the blood. I
believe we ought to be bled, spring and fall, like our foref;athers.
Look here, mother, don't take my grumbling to heart. I tell
you I'm just a little hipped from the weather. Let's send for
dear old Knott and get him to drive out the devil with his
lancet ? No, no, seriously, I tell you what we will do. It'll
be good for us both. I have arrived at a decision. We'll
have Uncle William and — Helen "

Richard had spoken very rapidly, half ashamed, trying to
soothe her. He paused on the last word. He was conscious
of a singular pleasure in pronouncing it. The perfectly
iinished figure of his cousin, outstanding against the wide,
misty brightness of the sunset, the scent of the wood and
moorland, the haunting suggestion of glad secrets, even that
upcurling of blue cigarette smoke, rising as the smoke of in-
cense— with a difference — upon the clear evening air, above
all that silent flattery of intimate and fearless glances, those
gay welcoming gestures, that merry calling, as of birds in the
tree-tops, from the spirit of youth within him to the spirit of
youth so visibly and radiantly resident in her — all this rose up
before Richard. He grew reckless, though reckless of precisely
what, innocent as he was, in fact although mature in learning, he
knew not as yet. Only he turned on his mother a face at
once eager and shy, coaxing her as when in his long-ago
baby-days he had implored some petty indulgence or the gift
of some coveted toy on which his little heart was set.

"Yes, let us have them," he said. "You know Helen is
very charming. You will admire her, mother. She is as
clever as she can stick, one sees that at a glance. And she is
very much grande dame too — and, oh, well, she is a whole lot
of charming things ! And her coming would be a wholesome
breaking up of our ordinary v/ays of going on. We are
usually very contented — at least, I think so — you, and dear
Julius, and I, but perhaps we are getting Into a bit of a rut.

2c8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Hwlen's society might prove an even more efficacious method
of driving out my blue-devils than Knott's lancet or a jolly
good spanking."

He laughed quietly, patting Katherine's hand, but looking
aw^ay.

"And there is no denying it would be a vastly more grace-
ful one — don't you think so ? "

Thus vi^ere smouldering fires of personal ambition quenched
in Lady Calmady, as so often before. Richard's tenderness
brought her to her knees. She hugged, vi^ith an almost vo-
luptuous movement of passion, that half-rejected burden of
maternity, gathering it close against her heart once more.
But, along with the rapture of self-surrender, came a thousand
familiar fears and anxieties. For she had looked into Dickie's
mind, as he spoke out his grumble, and had there perceived
the existence of much which she had dreaded and to the ex-
istence of which she had striven to blind herself.

" My darling," she said, with a certain hesitation, " I will
gladly have them if you wish it — only you remember what
happened long ago, when Helen was here last ? "

" Yes, I know, I was afraid you would think of that. But
you can put that aside. Helen's not the smallest recollection
of it. She told me so this afternoon."

" Told you so ? " Katherine repeated.

"Yes," he said. "It was awfully sweet of her. Evi-
dently she'd been bullied about her unseemly behaviour when
she was small, till you, and I, and Brockhurst, had been made
into a perfect bugbear. She's quite amusingly afraid of you
still. But she's no notion what really happened. Of course
she can't have, or she could not have mentioned the subject
to me." Richard shrugged his shoulders. " Obviously it
would have been impossible."

There was a pause. Lady Calmady rose. The young
man spoke with conviction, yet her anxiety was not altogether
allayed.

" Impossible," he repeated. " Pretty mother don't disquiet
yourself. Trust me. To tell you the truth I have felt to-
day— Is it very foolish ? — that I should like some one of my
own age for a- ^tle while, as — don't you know — a play-
fellow."

Katherine bent down and kissed him. But mother-love is

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 209

not, even in its most self-sacrificing expression, without tor-
ments of jealousy.

" My dear, you shall have your playfellovtr," she said,
though conscious of a tightening of the muscles of her beauti-
ful throat. " Good-night. Sleep v^^ell.''

She vi^ent out, closing the door behind her. The perspec-
tive of the dimly-lighted corridor, and the great hall beyond,
struck her as rather sadly lifeless and silent. What wonder,
indeed, that Richard should ask for a companion, for some-
thing young ! Love made her selfish and cowardly she feared.
She should have thought of this before. She turned back, again
opening the Gun-Room door.

Richard had raised himself. He stood on the seat of the
chair, steadying himself by one hand on the chair-back, vv^hile
with the other he pulled the rug from beneath the sleepy
bull-dog.

" Wake up, you lazy old beggar," he was saying. " Get
down, can't you. I want to go to bed, and you block the
way, lying there in gross comfort, snoring. Make yourself
scarce, old man. If I'd your natural advantages in the way
of locomotion, I wouldn't be so slow of using them "

He looked up, and slipped back into a sitting position hastily.

" Oh, mother, I thought you had gone ! " he exclaimed,
almost sharply.

And to Katherine, overstrung as she was, the words came
as a rebuke.

" My dearest, I won't keep you," she said. " I only came
back to ask you about Honoria St. Quentin."

"What about her?"

" She is staying at Newlands — the tv/o girls are friends, I
believe. She seemed to me a fine creature when last I saw
her. She knows the world, yet struck me curiously un-
touched by it. She is well read, she has ideas — some of them
a little extravagant, but time will modify that. Only her
head is awake as yet, not her heart, I think. Shall I ask her
to come too ? "

"So that we may wake up her heart?" Richard inquired
coldly. "No thanks, dear mother, that's too serious an
undertaking. Have her another time, please. I saw her to-
day, and, no doubt my taste is bad, but I must confess she did
not please me very much. Nor — which is more to the point

210 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

in this connection perhaps — did I please her. Would you
ring the bell, please, as you're there ? I want Powell. Thanks
so much. Good-night.'*

Some ten minutes later Julius March, after kneeling in
prayer, as his custom was, before the divinely sorrowful and
compassionate image of the Virgin Mother and the Dead
Christ, looked forth through the many-paned study window
into the clair-obscure of the windless autumn night. He had
been sensible of an unusual element in the domestic atmos-
phere this evening, and had been vaguely disquieted concerning
both Katherine and Richard. It was impossible but that, as
time went on, life should become more complicated at Brock-
hurst, and Julius feared his own inability to cope helpfully
with such complication. He entertained a mean opinion of
himself. It appeared to him he was but an unprofitable serv-
ant, unready, tongue-tied, lacking in resource. A depression
possessed him which he could not shake ofF. What had he
to show, after all, for these fifty-odd years of life granted to
him ? He feared his religion had walked in silver slippers,
and would so walk to the end. Could it then, in any true
and vital sense, be reckoned religion at all ? Gross sins had
never exercised any attraction over him. What virtue was
there, then, in being innocent of gross sin ? But to those
other sins — sins of defective moral courage in speech and
action, sins arising from over-fastidiousness — had he not
yielded freely ? Was he not a spiritual valetudinarian ? He
feared so. Off'ered, in the Eternal Mercy, endless precious
opportunities of service, he had been too weak, too timorous,
too slothful, to lay hold on them. And so, as it seemed to
him very justly, to-night confession, prayer, adoration, left
him unconsoled.

Then, looking out of the many-paned window, while the
shame of his barrenness clothed him even as a garment, he
beheld Lady Calmady pacing slowly over the gray quarries of
the terrace pavement. A dark, fur-bordered mantle shrouded
her tall figure from head to foot. Only her face showed, and
her hands folded stiffly high upon her bosom, strangely pale
against the blackness of her cloak. Ordinarily Julius would
have scrupled to intrude upon her lonely walk. But just now
the cry within him for human sympathy was urgent. Her
near neighbourhood in itself was very dear to him, and she

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 211

might let fall some gracious word testifying that, in her
opinion at least, his life had not been wholly vain. For very
surely that which survives when all other passions are uprooted
and cast forth — survives even in the case of the true ascetic
and saint — is the unquenchable yearning for the spoken ap-
proval of those whom we love and have loved.

And so, pushed by his poverty of self-esteem, Julius March,
throwing a plaid on over his cassock, went out and paced the
gray quarries beside Katherine Calmady.

On one hand rose the dark, rectangular masses of the house,
crowned by its stacks of slender, twisted chimneys. On the
other lay the indefinite and dusky expanse of the park and
forest. The night was very clear. The stars were innumer-
able— fierce, cold points of pulsing light. — Orion's jeweled
belt and sword flung wide against the blue-black vault.
Cassiopeia seated majestic in her golden chair. Northward,
above the walled gardens, the Bear pointing to the diamond
flashing of the Pole star. While across all high heaven, dusty
with incalculable myriads of worlds, stretched the awful and
mysterious highroad of the Milky-Way. The air was keen
and tonic though so still. An immense and fearless quiet
seemed to hold all things — a quiet not of sleep, but of con-
scious and perfect equilibrium, a harmony so sustained and
complete that to human ears it issued, of necessity, in silence.

And that silence Lady Calmady was in no haste to break.
Twice she and her companion walked the length of the ter-
race, and back, before she spoke. She paused, at length, just
short of the arcade of the further garden-hall.

" This great peace of the night puts all violence of feel-
ing to the blush," she said. " One perceives that a thousand
years are very really as one day. That calms one — with a
vengeance."

Katherine waited, looking out over the vague landscape,
clasping the fur-bordered edges of her cloak with either hand.
It appeared to Julius that both her voice and the expression of
her face were touched with irony.

" There is nothing new under the sun," she went on, " nor
under the ' visiting moon,' nor under those somewhat heartless
stars. Does it occur to you, Julius, how hopelessly unoriginal
we are, how we all follow in the same beaten track ? What
thousands of men and women have stood, as you and I stand

212 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

now, at once calmed — as I admit that I am — and rendered not
a little homeless by the realisation of their own insignificance
in face of the sleeping earth and this brooding immensity of
space ! A qmt hon^ a quoi hon ? Why can't one learn to harden
one's poor silly heart, and just move round, stone-like, with
the great movement of things accepting fate and ceasing to
struggle or to care ? "

"Just because, I think," he answered, " the converse of that
same saying is equally true. If, in material things, a thousand
years are as one day, in the things of the spirit one day is as a
thousand years. Remember the Christ crying upon the cross —
' My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? ' and suffer-
ing during that brief utterance the sum of all the agony of
sensible insignificance and sensible homelessness human nature
ever has borne or will bear."

" Ah, the Christ ! the Christ ! " Lady Calmady exclaimed^
half wistfully as it seemed to Julius March, and half im-
patiently. She turned and paced the pale pavement again.

" You are too courteous, my dear friend, and cite an example
august out of all proportion to my little lament." She looked
round at him as she spoke, smiling ; and in the uncertain light
her smile showed tremulous, suggestive of a nearness to tears.
" Instinctively you scale Olympus, — Calvary ? — yes, but I am
afraid both those heights take on an equally and tragically
mythological character to me — and would bring me consolation
from the dwelling-places of the gods. And my feet, all the
while, are very much upon the floor, alas ! That is happen-
ing to me which never yet happened to the gods, according to
the orthodox authorities. Just this — a commonplace — dear
Julius, I am growing old."

Katherine drew her cloak m.ore severely about her and
moved on hastily, her head a little bent.

"No, no, don't protest," she added, as he attempted to
speak. "We can be honest and dispense with conventional
phrases, here, alone, under the stars. I am growing old,
Julius — and being, I suppose, but a vain, doting woman, I have
only discovered what that really means to-day ! But there is
this excuse for me. My youth was so blessed, so — so glorious,
that it was natural I should strive to delude myself regarding
its passing away. I perceive that for years I have continued
to call that a bride-bed which was, in truth, a bier. I hive

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 213

struggled to keep my youth in fancy, as I have kept the red
drawing-room in fact, unaltered. Is not all this pitifully vain
and self-indulgent ? I have solaced myself with the phantom
of youth. And I am old — old.'*

" But you ai-e yourself, Katherine, yourself. Nothing that
has been, has ceased to be," Julius broke in, unable in the ful-
ness of his reverent honour of his dear lady to comprehend the
meaning of her present bitterness. "Surely the mere adding
of year to year can make no so vital difference ? "

" Ah ! you dear stupid creature," she cried, — " stupid,
because, manlike, you are so hopelessly sensible — it makes
just all the difference in the world. I shall grow less alert,
less pliable of mind, less quick of sympathy, less capable of
adjusting myself to altered conditions, and to entertaining
new views. And, all the while, the demand upon me will not
lessen."

Katherine stopped suddenly in her swift walk. The two
stood facing one another.

" The demand will increase," she declared. " Richard is
not happy."

And thereupon — since, even in the most devout and holy,
the old Adam dies extremely hard — Julius March fell a prey
to very lively irritation. While she talked of herself, bestow-
ing unreserved confidence upon him, he could listen gladly,
forever. But if that most welcome subject of conversation
should be dropped, let her give him that which he craved to-
night, so specially — a word for himself. Let her deal, for a
little space, with his own private needs, his own private joys
and sorrows.

"Ah ! Richard is not happy ! " he exclaimed, his irritation
finding voice. "We reach the root of the matter. Richard
is not happy. Alas, then, for Richard's mother ! "

"Are you so much surprised?" Katherine asked hotly.
"Do you venture to blame him ? If so, I am afraid religion
has made you rather cruel, Julius. But that is not a new
thing under the sun either. Those who possess high spiritual
consolations — unknown to the rank and file of us — have gen-
erally displayed an inclination to take the misfortunes of others
with admirable resignation. Dearest Marie de Mirancourt
was an exception to that rule. You might do worse perhaps
than learn to follow her example."

214 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

As she finished speaking Lady Calmady turned from him
rather loftily, and prepared to move away. But even in sa
doing she received an impression which tended to modify her
resentful humour.

P'or an instant Julius March stood, a tall, thin, black figure,
rigid and shadowless upon the pallor of the gray pavement, his
arms extended wide, as once crucified, while he looked, not at
her, not out into the repose of the night-swathed landscape,
but up at the silent dance of the eternal stars in the limitless
fields of space. As Katherine, earlier in the evening, had
taken up the momentarily rejected burden of her motherhood^
so Julius now, with a movement of supreme self-surrender^
took up the momentarily rejected burden of the isolation of
the religious life. Self-wounded by self-love, he had sought
comfort in the creature rather than the creator. And the
creature turned and rebuked him. It w^as just. Now Julius
gave himself back, bowed himself again under the dominion
of his fixed idea ; and, so doing, gained, unconsciously, precisely
that which he had gone forth to seek. For Katherine, struck
alike by the strange vigour, and strange resignation, of his
attitude, suffered quick fear, not only for, but of him. His
aloofness alarmed her.

" Julius ! dear Julius ! " she cried. *^ Come, let us walk. It
grows cold. I enjoy that, but it is not very safe for you.
And, pardon me, dear friend, I spoke harshly just now. I
told you I was getting old. Put my words down to the
peevishness of old age then."

Katherine smiled at him with a sw^eet, half-playful humility.
Her face was very wan. And speech not coming immediately
to him, she spoke again.

" You have always been very patient with me. You must
go on being so."

" I ask nothing better," Julius said.

Lady Calmady stopped, drew herself up, shook back her
head.

" Ah ! what sorry creatures we all are," she cried, rather
bitterly. " Discontented, unstable, forever kicking against
the pricks, and fighting against the inevitable. Always crying
to one another, 'See how hard this is, know how it hurts, feel
the weight!' My poor darling cries to me — that is natural
enough " — Katherine paused — " and as it should be. But I

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 215

must needs run out and cry to you. In this we are like links
of an endless chain. What is the next link, Julius ? To
whom will you cry in your turn ? "

" The chain is not endless," he replied. " The last link
of it is riveted to the steps of the throne of God. I will
make my cry there — my threefold cry — for you, for Richard,
and for myself, Katherine."

Lady Calmady had reached the arched side-door leading
from the terrace into the house. She paused, with her hand
on the latch.

'' Your God and I quarreled nearly four-and-twenty years
ago — not when Richard, my joy, died, but when Richard, my
sorrow, was born," she said. " I own I see no way, short of
miracle, of that quarrel being made up."

" Then a miracle will be worked," he answered.

" Ah ! You forget I grow old," Katherine retorted, smi-
ling ; " so that for miracles the time is at once too long and
too short."

CHAPTER V

TELLING HOW QUEEN MARY's CRYSTAL BALL CAME TO FAL\
ON THE GALLERY FLOOR

' I ^HIS world is unquestionably a vastly stimulating and en-
tertaining place if you take it aright — namely, if you
recognise that it is the creation of a profound humorist, is de-
signed for wholly practical and personal uses, and proceed to
adapt your conduct to that knowledge in all light-heartedness
and good faith. Thus, though in less trenchant phrase since
she was still happily very young, meditated Madame de Val-
lorbes, while standing in the pensive October sunshine upon
the wide flight of steps which leads down from the main
entrance of Brockhurst House. Tall, stone pinnacles alter-
nating with seated griffins — long of tail, fierce of beak and
sharp of claw — fill in each of the many angles of the descend-
ing stone balustrade on either hand. Behind her, the florid,
though rectangular, decoration of the house front ranged up,
storey above storey, in arcade and pilaster, heavily mullioned

2i6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

window, carven plaque and string course, to pairs of matching
pinnacles and griffins — these last rampant, supporting the
Calmady shield and coat-of-arms — the quaint forms of which
break the long line of the pierced, stone parapet in the centre
of the facade, and rise above the rusty red of the low-pitched
roofs, until the spires of the one and crested heads of the other
are outlined against the sky. About her feet the pea-fowl
stepped in mincing and self-conscious elegance — the cocks
with rustlings of heavy trailing quills, the hens and half-grown
chicks with squeakings and whiiflings — subdued, conversa-
tional— accompanied by the dry tap of many bills picking up
the glossy grains of Indian-corn which she let dribble slowly
down upon the shallow steps from between her pretty fingers.
She had huddled a soft sable tippet about her throat and shoul-
ders. The skirt of her indigo-coloured, poplin dress, turning
upon the step immediately above that on which she stood,
showed some inches of rose-scarlet, silken frill lining the hem
of it.

Helen de Vallorbes had a lively consciousness of her sur-
roundings. She enjoyed every detail of them. Enjoyed the
gentle, southwesterly wind which touched her face and
stirred her bright hair, enjoyed the plaintive, autumn song of
a robin perched on a rose-grown wall, enjoyed the impotent
ferocity of the guardian griffins, enjoyed the small sounds
made by the feeding pea-fowl, the modest quaker grays and
the imperial splendours of their plumage. She enjoyed the
turn of her own wrist, its gold chain-bracelet and the hand-
some lace falling away from and displaying it, as she held out
the handfuls of corn. She enjoyed even tliat space of rose-
scarlet declaring itself between the dull blue of her dress and
the gray, weathered surface of the stone.

But all these formed only the accompaniment, the ground-
tone, to more reasoned, more vital enjoyments. Before her,
beyond the carriage sweep, lay the square lawn enclosed by red
walls and by octagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses, whereon —
unwillingly, yet in obedience to the wild justice of revenge —
Roger Ormiston had shot the Clown, half-brother to Touch-
stone, race-horse of mournful memory. As a child Helen had
heard that story. Now her somewhat light, blue-gray eyes,
their beautiful lids raised wide for once, looked out curiously
upon the space of dew-powdered turf 5 while the corners of

LA BELLE DAiME SANS MERCI 217

her mouth — a mouth a trifle thin h'pped, yet soft and danger-
ously sweet for kissing — turned upward in a reflective smile.
She, too, knew what it was to be angry, to the point of re-
venge ; had indeed come to Brockhurst not without purpose
of that last tucked away in some naughty convolution of her
active brain. But Brockhurst and its inhabitants had proved
altogether more interesting than she had anticipated. This
was the fourth day of her visit, and each day had proved more
to her taste than the preceding one. So she concluded this
matter of revenge might very well stand over for the moment,
possibly stand over altogether. The present was too excellent,,
of its kind, to risk spoiling. Helen de Vallorbes valued the
purple and fine linen of a high civilisation ; nor did she dis~
dain, within graceful limits, to fare sumptuously every day.
She valued all that is beautiful and costly in art, of high merit
and distinction in literature. Her taste was sure and just, if
a little more disposed towards that which is sensuous than to-
wards that which is spiritual. And in all its many forms she
appreciated luxury, even entertaining a kindness for that
necessary handmaid of luxury — waste. Appreciated these the
more ardently, that, with birth-pangs at the beginning of each
human life, death-pangs and the corruption of the inevitable
grave at the close of each, all this lapping, meanwhile, of the
doomed flesh in exaggerations of ease and splendour seemed to
her among the very finest ironies of the great comedy of ex-
istence. It heightened, it accentuated the drama. And
among the many good things of life, drama, come how and
where and when it might, seemed to her supremely the best.
She desired it as a lover his mistress. To detect it, to observe
it, gave her the keenest pleasure. To take a leading part in
and shape it to the turn of her own heart, her own purpose,
her own wit was, so far, her ruling passion.

And of potential drama, of the raw material of it, as the
days passed, she found increasingly generous store at Brock-
hurst. It invaded and held her imagination, as the initial con-
ception of his poem will that of the poet, or of his picture
that of the painter. She brooded over it, increasingly con-
vinced that it might be a masterpiece. For the drama — as
she apprehended it — contained not only elements of virility
and strength, but an element, and that a persistent one, of the
grotesque. This put the gilded dome to her silent, and per-

2i8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

haps slightly unscrupulous, satisfaction. How could it be
otherwise, since the presence of the grotesque is, after all, the
main justification of the theory on which her philosophy of
life was based — namely, the belief that above all eloquence of
human speech, behind all enthusiasm of human action or emo-
tion, the ear which hears aright can always detect the echo of
eternal laughter ? And this grim echo did not affect the
charming young lady to sadness as yet. Still less did it make
her mad, as the mere suspicion of it has made so many, and
those by no means unworthy or illiterate persons. For the
laugh, so far, had appeared to be on her side, never at her ex-
pense— which makes a difference. And the chambers of her
house of life were too crowded by health and agreeable sensa-
tions, mental activities and sparkling audacities, to have any
one of them vacant for reception, more than momentary, of
that thrice-blessed guest, pity.

And so it followed that, as she fed the mincing pea-fowl,
Madame de Vallorbes' smile changed in character from reflec-
tion to impatience. A certain heat running through her, she
set her pretty teeth and fell to pelting the pea-hens and chicks
mischievously, breaking up all their aristocratic reserve and
making them jump and squeak to some purpose. For this
precious, this very masterpiece of a drama was not only here
potentially, but actually. It was alive. She had felt it move
under her hand — or under her heart, which was it ? — yesterday
evening. Again this morning, just now, she had noted signs
of its vitality, wholly convincing to one skilled in such mat-
ters. Impatience, then, became very excusable.

" For my time is short and the action disengages itself so
<leplorably slowly ! " she exclaimed. " Pah ! you greedy, con-
ceited birds, which do you hold dearest after all, the filling of
your little stomachs, or the supporting of your little dignities ?
Be advised by a higher intelligence. Revenge yourselves on
the grains that hit and sting you by gobbling them up. It is
a venerable custom that of feasting upon one's enemies. And
has been practised, in various forms, both by nations and in-
dividuals. There, I give you another chance of displaying
wisdom — there — there ! — La ! la! what an absurd commotion !
You little idiots, don't flutter. Agitation is a waste of energy,
and advances nothing. I declare peace. I want to consider."

And so, letting the remaining handfuls of corn dribble dowj*

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 219

very slowly, while the sunshine grew warmer and the shadows-
of the guardian griffins more distinct upon the lichen-
encrusted stones, Helen de Vallorbes sank back into medita-
tion — Yes, unquestionably the drama was alive. But it
seemed so difficult to bring it to the birth. And she wanted,
very badly, to hear its first half-articulate cries and watch its
first staggering footsteps. All that is so entertaining, you
yourself safely grown-up, standing very firm on your feet, \.
looking down ! And it would be a lusty child, this drama,
very soon reaching man's estate and man's inspiring violence
of action, striking out like some blind, giant Samson, blunder-
ing headlong in its unseeing, uncalculating strength. — Helen
laid her hands upon her bosom, and threw back her head,
while her throat bubbled with suppressed laughter. Ah ! it
promised to be a drama of ten thousand, if she knew her
power, and knew her world — and she possessed considerable
confidence in her knowledge of both. Only, how on earth to
set the crystal free of the matrix, how to engage battle, how
to get this thing fairly and squarely born ? For, as she ac-
knowledged, in the flotation of all such merry schemes as her
present one, chance encounters, interludes, neatly planned
evasions and resultant pursuits, play so large and important a
part. But at Brockhurst this whole chapter of accidents was
barred, and received rules of strategy almost annihilated, by
the fact of Richard Calmady's infirmity and the hard-and-fast
order of domestic procedure, the elaborate system of etiquette,
which that infirmity had gradually produced. At Brockhurst
there were no haphazard exits and entrances. These were
either hopelessly official and public, or guarded to an equally
hopeless point of secrecy. A contingent of tall, civil men-
servants was always on duty. Richard was invariably in his
place at table when the rest of the company came down.
The ladies took their after-dinner cofFee in the drawing-room,
and joined the gentlemen in the Chapel-Room, library, or gal-
lery, as the case might be. If they rode, Richard was at the
door ready mounted, along with the grooms and ied-horses.
If they drove, he was already seated in the carriage.

"And how, how in the name of common sense," Madame
de Vallorbes exclaimed, stamping her foot, and thereby throw-
ing the now thoroughly nervous pea-fowl into renewed agita-
tion, '' arc you to establish any relation worth meationing with

220 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

a man who is perpetually being carried in procession like a
Hindu idol ? My good birds, one's never alone with him —
whether by design and arrangement, I know not. But, so
far, never, never, picture that ! And yet, don't tell me,
matchless mixture of pride and innocence though he is, he
wouldn't like it ! "

However, she checked her irritation by contemplation of
yesterday. Ah ! that had been very prettily done assuredly.
For riding in the forenoon along the road skirting the palings
of the inner park, while they walked their horses over the
soft, brown bed of fallen fir-needles, — she, her father, and
Dick, — the conversation dealt with certain first editions and
their bindings, certain treas-ures, unique in historic worth,
locked in the glass tables and fine Florentine and pietra dura
cabinets of the Long Gallery. Mr. Ormiston was a connois-
seur and talked well. And Helen had sufficient acquaintance
with such matters both to appreciate, and to add telling words
to the talk.

"Ah! but I cannot go without seeing those delectable
things, Richard," she said. "Would it be giving you alto-
gether too much trouble to have them out for me ? "

" Why, of course not. You shall see them whenever you
like," he answered. " Julius knows all about them. He'll
be only too delighted to act showman."

Just here the road narrowed a little, and Mr. Ormiston let
his horse drop a few lengths behind, so that she, Helen, and
her cousin rode forward side by side. The tones of the low
sky, of the ranks of firs and stretches of heather formed a rich,
though sombre, harmony of colour. Scents, pungent and
singularly exhilarating, were given off by the damp mosses and
the peaty moorland soil. The freedom of the forest, the feel-
ing of the noble horse under her, stirred Helen as with the ex-
citement of a mighty hunting, a positively royal sport. While
the close presence of the young man riding beside her
sharpened the edge of that excitement to a perfect keenness of
pleasure.

" Ah, how glorious it all is ! " she cried. " How glad I am
that you asked me to come here."

And she turned to Richard, looking at him as, since the
first day of their jueeting, she had not, somehow, quite ven-
tured to look.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 22B

" But, oh ! dear me ! please/' she went on, " I know Mr.
March is an angel, a saint — but — but — mea culpa ^ mea maxima
culpa^ I don't want him to show me those special treasures of
yours. He'll take the life out of them. I know it. And
make them seem like things read of merely in a learned book.
Be very charming to me, Richard. Waste half an hour upon
me. Show me those moving relics yourself."

As she spoke, momentary suspicion rose in Dickie's eyes.
But she gazed back unflinchingly, with the uttermost frank-
ness, so that suspicion died, giving place to the shy, yet
triumphant, gladness of youth which seeks and finds youth.

" Do, Richard, pray do," she repeated.

The young man had averted his face rather sharply, and
both horses, somehow, broke into a hand gallop.

" All right," he answered. " I'll arrange it. This evenings
about six, after tea ? Will that suit you ? I'll send you word.""

Then the road had widened, permitting Mr. Ormiston to
draw up to them again. The remainder of the ride had been
a little silent. ^_^ — —

Yes, all that had been prettily done. Nor had the piece
that followed proved unworthy of the prelude. She ran over
the scene in her mind now, as she stood among the pocketing
pea-fowl, and it caused her both mirth and delightful little
heats, in which the heart has a word to say. — Madame de
Vallorbes was ravished to feel her heart, just now and again. —
For, contradictory as it may seem, no game is perfect that has
not moments of seriousness. — She recalled the aspect of the
Long Gallery, as one of those civil, ever-present men-servants
had opened the door for her, and she waited a moment on the
threshold. The true artist is never in a hurry. The breadth
of the great room immediately before her showed very bright
with candle-light and lamplight. But that died away, through
gradations of augmenting obscurity, until the extreme end,
towards the western bay, melted out into complete darkness*
This produced an effect of almost limitless length which
moved her to a childish, and at first pleasing, fancy of vague
danger — an effect heightened by the ranges of curious and
costly objects standing against, or decorating, the walls in a.
perspective of deepening gloom. Turquoise-coloured, satin
curtains, faded to intimate accord with the silvered surface of
the paneling, were drawn across the wide windows. They

222 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

reached to the lower edge of the stonework merely, leaving
blottings of impenetrable shadow below. While, as culmina-
tion of interest, as living centre of this rich and varied setting,
was the figure of Richard Calmady — seen, as his custom was,
only to the waist — seated in a high-backed chair drawn close
against an antique, oak table, upon which a small pietra dura
cabinet had been placed. The doors of the cabinet stood
open, displaying slender columns of jasper and porphyry, and
little drawers encrusted with raised work in marbles and pre-
cious stones. The young man sat stiffly upright, as one who
listens, expectant. His expression was almost painfully se-
rious. In one hand he held a string of pearls, attached to
which, and enclosed by intersecting hoops of gold, was a
crystal ball that shone with the mild effulgence of a mimic
moon. And the great room was so very quiet, that Helen, in
her pause upon the threshold, had remarked the sound of rain-
drops tapping upon the many window-panes as with im-
patiently nervous fingers.

And this bred in her a corresponding nervousness — sensa-
tion to her, heretofore, almost unknown. The darkness yon-
der began to provoke a disagreeable impression, queerly chal-
lenging both her eyesight and her courage. Old convent
teachings, regarding the Prince of Darkness and his emissaries,
returned upon her. What if diabolic shapes lurked there,
ready to oecome stealthily emergent ? She had scoffed at such
archaic fancies in cne convent, yet, in lonely hours, had suf-
fered panic fear of them, as will the hardiest sceptic. A cer-
tain little scar, moreover, carefully hidden under the soft hair
arranged low on her right temple, smarted and pricked. In
short, her habitual self-confidence suffered partial eclipse. She
was visited by the disintegrating suspicion, for once, that the
eternal laughter might, possibly, be at her expense, rather than
.on her side.

But she conquered such suspicion as contemptible, and cast
out the passing weakness. The bare memory of it angered
her now, causing her to fire a volley of yellow corn at a lordly
peacock, which sent him scuttling down the steps on to the
gravel in most plebeian haste. Yes, she had speedily cast out
her weakness, thank heaven ! What was all the pother about
after all ? This was not the first time she had played merry
games with the affairs and affections of men. Madame de

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 22j

Vallorbes smiled to herself, recalling certain episodes, and
shook her charming shoulders gleefully, as she looked out into-
the sunny morning. And then, was there not ample excuse ?
This man moved her more than most — more than any. She
swore he did. Her attitude towards him was something new,
something quite different, thereby justifying her campaign.
And therefore, all the bolder for her brief self-distrust and hes-
itation, she had swept across the great room, light of foot, and
almost impertinently graceful of carriage.

"Here you are at last!" Dickie had exclaimed, with a
sigh as of relief. " I shan't want anything more, Powell.
You can come back when the dressing-bell rings." * Then, as-
the valet closed the door behind him, he continued rapidly : —
" Not that I propose to victimise you till then, Helen. You^
mustn't stay a bit longer than you like. I confess I'm awfully
fond of this room. I'm almost ashamed to think how much
time I waste in it. Doing what? Oh, well, just dreaming!
You see it contains samples of the doings of all my father's
people, and I return to primitive faiths here and to perform
acts of ancestor worship."

" Ah ! I like that ! " Helen said. And she did. Picture
this man, long of arm, unnaturally low of stature, and astonish-
ingly— yes, quite astonishingly good-looking, moving about :
among these books and pictures, these trophies of war and of
sport, these oriental jars, tall almost as himself, and all the
other strange furnishings from out distant years and distant
lands ! Picture him emerging from that well of soft darkness
yonder, for instance ! Helen's eyes danced under their arched
and drooping lids, and she registered the fact that, though still
frightened, her fright had changed in character. It was grate-
ful to her palate. She relished it as the bouquet of a wine of
finest quality. Meanwhile her companion talked on.

"The ancestor worship ? Oh yes! I dare say you might
like it for a change. Getting it as I do, as habitual diet, it is
not remarkably stimulating. The natural man prefers to find
occasion for worshipping himself rather than his ancestors,
after all, you know. But a little turn of it will serve to fill in
a gap and lessen the monotony of your visit. I am afraid you
must be a good deal bored, Helen. It must seem rather ter-
ribly humdrum here after Paris and Naples, and — well — most
places, at that rate, as you know them."

224 SIR RICHARD CALA/IADY

Richard shifted his position. And the crystal moon encom-
passed by golden bands, crossing and intersecting one another
like those of a sidereal sphere, gleamed as with an inward and
unearthly light, swinging slowly upon the movement of his
hand.

" You must feel here as though the clock had been put back
two or three centuries. I know we move slowly, and conduct
ourselves with tedious deliberation. And so, you understand,
you mustn't let me keep you. Just look at what you like
of these odds and ends, and then depart without scruple. It's
rather a fraud, in any case, my showing them to you. Julius
March, as I told you, is much better qualified to."

"Julius March, Julius March," Madame de Vallorbes broke
in. " Do, I beseech you, dear Cousin Richard, leave him to
the pious retirement of his study. Is he not middle-aged, and
a priest into the bargain ? "

" Unquestionably," Dickie said. " But, pardon me, I don't
quite see what that has to do with it."

Thereupon Madame de Vallorbes made a very naughty, lit-
tle grimace and drummed with her finger-tips upon the table.

" La ! la ! " she cried, " you're no better than all the rest.
Commend me to a clever man for incapacity to apprehend
what is patent to the intelligence of the most ordinary woman.
Look about you." — Helen sketched in their surroundings with
a quick descriptive gesture. " Observe the lights and shad-
ows. The ghostly wavings of those pale curtains. Smell the
potpourri and spices. Think of the ancestor worship. Lis-
ten to the protesting wind and rain. See the mysterious treas-
ure you hold in your hand. And then ask me what middle-
age and the clerical profession have to do with all this ! Why,
nothing, just precisely nothing, nothing in the whole world.
That's the point of my argument. They'd ruin the senti-
ment, blight the romance, hopelessly blight it — for me at
least."

The conversation was slightly embarrassed, both Helen and
Richard talking at length, yet at random. But she knew that
it was thus, and not otherwise, that it behooved them to talk.
For that which they said mattered not in the least. The thing
said served as a veil, as a cloak, merely, wherewith to disguise
-those much greater things which, perforce, remained unsaid. —
To cover his and her lively consciousness of their present iso-

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 225

lation, desired these many days and now obtained. To con-
ceal the swift, silent approaches of spirit to spirit, so full of in-
quiry and self-revelation, fugitive reserves and fugitive dis-
trusts. To hide, as far as might be, the existence of the hun-
gry, all-compelling joie de vivre which is begotten whensoever
youth thus seeks and finds youth, — These unspoken and, as:
yet, unspeakable things were alone of real moment, making
eyes lustrous and lips quick with tremulous, uncalled-for smiles
irrespective of the purport of their speech.

" Ah ! but that's rather rough on poor dear Julius, you
know," Dickie said. " I suppose you wanted to learn all '^

" Learn ? " she interrupted. " I wanted to feel. Don't
you know there is only one way any woman worth the name
ever really learns — through her emotions ? Only the living
feel. Such men as he, if they are sincere, are already dead.
He would have made feeling impossible."

A perceptible hush descended upon the room. Richard
Calmady's hand usually was steady enough, but, in the silence,
the pearls chattered against the table. He went rather pale
and his face hardened.

" And are you getting anything of that which you wanted^
Helen ? " he asked. " For sometimes in the last few days —
since you have been here — I — I have wondered if perhaps we
were not all like that — all dead "

^'You mean do I get emotion, am I feeling?" she said.
"Rest contented. Much is happening. Indeed I have
doubted, during the last few days, since I have been herc^
whether I have ever known what it is to feel actually and se-
riously before."

She sat down at right angles to him, resting her elbows upon
the table, her chin upon her folded hands, leaning a little
towards him. One of those pleasant heats swept over her,
flushing her delicate skin, lending a certain effulgence to her
beauty. The scent of roses long faded hung in the air. But
here was a rose sweeter far than they. No white rose of par-
adise, it must be confessed. Rather like her immortal name-
sake, that classic Helen, was she rosa mundi^ glowing with
warmth and colour, rose-red rose altogether of this dear,
naughty, lower world ?

" Richard," she said impulsively, " why don't you under-
stand ? Why do you underrate your own power ? Don't you

226 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

know that you are quite the most moving, the most attractive —
w^ell — cousin, a woman ever had ? "

She looked closely at him, her lips a little parted, her head
thrown back.

" Life is sweet, dear cousin. Reckon with yourself and
with it, and live — live." — Then she put out her hand and held
up the crystal between her face and his. " There," she went
on, " tell me about this. I become indiscrete, thanks I sup-
pose to your Brockhurst habit of putting back the clock, and
speak with truly Elizabethan frankness. It belongs to semi-
barbaric ages, doesn't it, this, to tell the true truth ? Show me
this. It seems rather fascinating."

And Richard obeyed mechanically, pointing out to her the
signs of the Zodiac, those of the planets, and other figures of
occult significance engraved on the encircling, golden bands.
Showed her how those same bands, turning on a pivot, formed
a golden cradle, in which the crystal sphere reposed. He
lifted it out from that cradle, moreover, and laid it in the softer
cradle of her palm. And of necessity in the doing of all this,
their heads — his and hers — were very near together, and their
hands met. But they were very solemn all the while, solemn,
eager, busy, as two babies revealing to each other the mysteries
of a newly acquired toy. And it seemed to Madame de
Vallorbes that all this was as pretty a bit of business as ever
served to help forward such gay purposes as hers. She was
pleased with herself too — for did she not feel very gentle,
very sincere, really very innocent and good ?

" No, hold it so," Richard said, rounding her fingers care-
fully, that the tips of them might alone touch the surface of
the crystal. "Now gaze into the heart of it steadily, fixing
your will to see. Pictures will come presently, dimly at first,
as in a mist. Then the mist will lift and you will read your
own fortune and — perhaps — some other person's fate."

" Have you ever read yours ? "

" Oh ! mine's of a sort that needs no crystal to reveal it,"
he answered, with a queer drop in his voice. ^' It's written in
rather indecently big letters and plain type. Always has been."

Helen glanced at him. His words whipped up her sense of
drama, fed her excitement. But she bent her eyes upon the
crystal again, and the hush descended once more, disturbed
only by that nervous tapping of rain.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 227

" I see nothing, nothing," she said presently. " And there
is much I would give very much to see."

" You must gaze with a simple intention." The young
man's voice came curiously hoarse and broken. " Purify your
mind of all desire."

Helen did not raise her head.

" Alas ! if those are the conditions of revelation my chances
of seeing are extremely limited. To purify one's mind of all
desire is to commit emotional suicide. Of course I desire, all
the while I desire. And equally, of course, you desire.
Every one who is human and in their sober senses must da
that. Absence of desire means idiotcy, or "

" Or what ? "

For an instant she looked up at him, a very devil of dainty
malice in her expression, in the shrug of her shoulders too,
beneath their fine laces and the affected sobriety of that same
dull-blue, poplin gown.

'' Or priestly, saintly middle-age — from which may heaven
in its mercy ever deliver us," she said.

Richard shifted his position a little, gathering himself back
from her so near neighbourhood — a fact of which the young
lady was not unaware.

" I'm not quite sure whether I echo your prayer," he said
slowly. " I doubt whether that attitude, or one approximate
to it, is not the safest and best for some of us."

" Safest, no doubt." Madame de Vallorbes' eyes were bent
on the crystal sphere again. " As it is safer to decline a duel,
than go out and meet your man. Best ? On that point you
must permit me to hold my own opinion. The word best has
many readings according to the connection in which it is em«
ployed. Personally I should always fight."

"Whatever the odds ? "

" Whatever the odds." — And almost immediately Madame
de Vallorbes uttered a little cry, curiously at variance with
her bold words. " Something is moving inside the crystal,
something is coming. I don't half like it, Richard. Perhaps
we are tempting Providence. Yes, it moves, it moves, like
mist rising off a river. It is poisonous. Some woman has
looked into this before — a woman of my temperament — and
read an evil fortune. I know it. Tell me quick, how did
the crystal come here, to whom did it bclor^ ? '*

228 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" To Mary Stuart — Mary, Queen of Scots/' Dickie said.

'^Ah! unhappy woman, ill-omened woman. You should
have told me that before and I would never have looked.
Here take it, take it. Lock it up, hide it. Let no woman
ever look in it again."

As she spoke Helen crossed herself hastily, pushing the
magic ball towards him. But, as though endowed with life
and volition of its own — or was it merely that Dick's hand
was even yet not quite of the steadiest ? — it evaded his grasp,
fell off the table edge and rolled, gleaming moonlike, far across
the floor, away behind the pedestal of the bronze Pompeian
Antinous, into the dusky shadow of those ghostly-waving, tur-
quoise, satin curtains.

With a sense of catastrophe upon her Helen had sprung to
her feet. — Even now, standing in the peaceful warmth of the
autumn sunshine, among the feeding pea-fowl, the remem-
brance of it caused her a little shiver. For at sight of that
gleaming ball hurrying across the carpet, all the nervousness,
the distrust of herself, the vague spiritual alarms, which had
beset her on first entering the room, returned on her with ten-
fold force. The superstitious terrors of the convent-bred girl
mastered the light-hearted scepticism of the woman of the
■world, and regions of sinister possibility seemed disclosing
themselves around her.

^' Oh ! how horrible ! What does it mean ? " she cried.

And Richard answered cheerily, somewhat astonished at her
agitation, trying to reassure her.

" Mean ? Nothing, except that I was abominably awkward
and the crystal abominably slippery. What does it matter?
We can find it again directly."

Then, self-forgctfu! in the fulness of his longing to pacify
her, Richard had pushed his chair back from the table, intend-
ing to go in search of the vagrant jewel. But the chair was
high, and its make not of the most solid sort ; and so he
paused, instinctively calculating the amount of support it could
be trusted to render him in his descent. And during that
pause Helen had felt her heart stand still. She set her little
teeth now, recalling it. For the extent of his deformity was
fully apparent for once. And, apprehending that which he
proposed to do, she was smitten by immense curiosity to
realise the ultimate of the grotesque in respect of his appear-

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 229

ance as he should move, walk, grope in the dimness over there
after the lost crystal. But there are some indulgences vi^hich
can be bought at too high a price, and along with the tempta-
tion to gratify her curiosity came an inteiisification of super-
stitious alarm. What if she had sinned, and trafficked with
diabolic agencies, in trying to read the future ? Payment of
an actively disagreeable character might be exacted for that,
and would not such payment risk disastrous augmentation if
she gratified her curiosity thus further ? Helen de Vallorbes
became quite wonderfully prudent and humane.

" No, no, don't bother about it, don't move, dear Richard,""
she cried. " Let me find it please. I saw exactly the direc-
tion in which it went.''

And to emphasise her speech, and keep the young man in
his place, she laid her hands persuasively upon his shoulders.
This brought her charming face, so pure in outline, set in its
aureole of honey-coloured hair, very near to his, she look-
ing down, he up. And in this position the two remained
longer than was absolutely necessary, silent, quite still, while
the air grew thick with the push of unspoken and as yet
unspeakable matters, and Helen's hands resting upon his
shoulders grew heavy, as the seconds passed, with languorous
weight.

" There are better things than crystals to read in, after all^
Richard," she said at last. Then she lifted her hands almost
brusquely and stepped back. "All the same it is stupid I
should have to go away," she continued, speaking more to her-
self than to him. " I am happy here. And when I am happy^
it's easy to be good — and I like to be good."

She crossed the room and passed behind the bronze Pom-
peian Antinous. Under the shadow of the curtains, in the
angle of the bay, against the wainscot. Queen Mary's magic
ball showed softly luminous. Helen could have believed that
it watched her. She hesitated before stooping to pick it up
and looked over her shoulder at Richard Calmady. His back
was towards her, his chair close against the table again. He
leaned forward on his elbows, his face buried in his hands.
Something in the bowed head, in the set of the almost crouch-
ing figure reassured Madame de Vallorbes. She picked up the
crystal without more ado, with, indeed, a certain flippancy of
gesture. For she had received pleasing assurance that she had

230 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

been frightened in the wrong place, and that the eternal laugh-
ter was very completely on her side after all.

And just then a bell had rung in some distant quarter of the
great house. Powell, incarnation of decent punctualities, had
appeared. Whereupon the temperature fell to below normal
from fever-heat. Drama, accentuations of sensibility, in short
all the unspoken and unspeakable, withered as tropic foliage at
a touch of frost. No doubt it was as well, Madame de
Vallorbes reflected philosophically, since the really psycho-
logical moment was passed. There had been a dinner party
last night, and —

But here the young lady's reminiscences broke off short.
She gathered up her blue, poplin, scarlet-lined skirts, ran down
the steps, scattering the pea-fowl to right and left, and
hastened across the gravel.

" Wait half a minute for me, dear Aunt Katherine," she
cried. " Are you going to the conservatories ? I would so
like to see them. May I go too ? "

Lady Calmady stood by the door in the high, red-brick
wall. She wore a white, lace scarf over her hair — turned up
and back, dressed high, as of old, though now somewhat gray
upon the temples. The lace was tied under her chin, fram-
ing her face. In her gray dress she looked as some stately,
yet gracious lady abbess might — a lady abbess who had known
love in all fulness, yet in all honour — a lady abbess painted, if
such happy chance could be, by the debonair and clean-
hearted Reynolds. She stood smiling, charmed — though a
trifle unwillingly — by the brilliant visionof the younger woman,

" Assuredly you may come with me, if it would amuse
you," she said.

" I may ? Then let me open that door for you. La ! la 1
how it sticks. Last night's rain must have swelled it ; " and
she wrestled unsuccessfully with the lock.

" My dear, don't try any more," Katherine said. " You
will tire yourself. The exertion is too great for you. I will
go back and call one of the servants."

'* No, no ; " and regardless of her fine laces, and trinkets,
and sables Madame de Vallorbes put her shoulder against the
resisting door and fairly burst it open.

" See," she cried, breathless but triumphant, " I am very
strong/

I.A BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 231

*^You are very pretty," Katherine said, almost involun-
tarily.

The steeply-terraced kitchen gardens, neat box edgings,
wide flower borders in which a few clumps of chrysanthemum
and Michaelmas daisy still resisted the frost, ranged down to
greenish brown ponds in the valley bottom spotted with busy,
quacking companies of white ducks. Beyond was an ascend- .
ing slope of thick wood, the topmost trees of which showed
bare against the sky line. All this was framed by the arch of
the door. Madame de Vallorbes glanced at it, while she
pulled down the soft waves of hair, which her late exertions
had slightly disarranged, over her right temple. Then she
turned impulsively to Lady Calmady.

" Thank you, dear Aunt Katherine," she said. " I would
so like you to like me, you know."

" I should be rather unpardonably difficult to please, if I
did not like you, my dear," Lady Calmady answered. But
she sighed as she spoke.

The two women moved away, side by side, down the path
to the glistering greenhouses. But Camp, who, missing
Richard, had followed his mistress out of the house for a
leisurely morning potter, turned back sulkily across the gravel
homewards, his tail limp, his heavy head carried low. His
instincts were conservative, as has been already mentioned.
He was suspicious of newcomers. And whoever liked this
particular newcomer, Madame de Vallorbes, he was sorry to
say — and on more than one occasion he said it with quite
inconvenient distinctness — he did not.

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH DICKIE TRIES TO RIDE AWAY FROM HIS OWN
SHADOW, WITH SUCH SUCCESS AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN
ANTICIPATED

' I ^HAT same morning Richard was up and out early. Fog
had followed on the evening's rain, and at sunrise still
shrouded all the landscape.

"Let her ladyship know I breakftist at the stables and

232 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

shan't be in before luncheon/' he had said to Powell while
settling himself in the saddle. Then, followed by a groom, he
fared forth. The house vanished phantom-like behind him,
and the clang of the iron gates as they swung to was muffled
by the heavy atmosphere, while he rode on by invisible ways
across an invisible land, hemmed in, close-encompassed,
passed upon, by the chill, ashen whiteness of the fog.

And for the cold silence and blankness surrounding him
Richard was grateful. It was restful — after a grim fashion —
and he welcomed rest, having passed a but restless night.
For Dickie had been the victim of much travail of spirit.
His imagination vexed him, pricking up slumbering lusts of
the flesh. His conscience vexed him likewise, suggesting that
his attitude had not been pure cousinly ; and this shamed
him, since he was still singularly unspotted from the world,
noble modesties and decencies still paramount in him. He
was keenly, some might say mawkishly, sensible of the stain
and dishonour of turning, even involuntarily and passingly,
covetous glances upon another man's goods. In sensation
and apprehension he had lived at racing pace during the last
few days. That hour in the Long Gallery last night had
been the climax. The gates of paradise had opened before
him. And, since opposites of necessity imply their opposites,
the gates of hell had opened likewise. It appeared to Dickie
that the great poets, and painters, and musicians, the great
lovers even, had nothing left to tell him — for he knew.
Knew, moreover, that his Eden had come to him with the
angel of the fiery sword that " turneth every way" standing
at the threshold of it — knew, yet further, as he had never
known before, the immensity of the difficulties, disabilities,
humiliations, imposed on him by his deformity. Bitterly,
nakedly, he called his trouble by that offensive name. Then
he straightened himself in the saddle. Yes, welcome the cold
weight against his chest, welcome the silence, the blankness,
the dead, ashen pallor of the fog !

But just where the tan ride, leading down across the road
to the left diverges from the main road, this source of nega-
tive consolation began to fail him. For a draw of fresher air
came from westward, causing the blurred, wet branches to
quiver and the pall of mist to gather, and then break and melt
under its wholesome breath, while the rays of the laggard sun,

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 233

clearing the edge of the fir forest, eastward, pierced it, hasten-
ing its dissolution. Therefore it followed that by the time
Richard rode in under the stable archway, he found the great
yard full of noise and confused movement. The stable
doors stood wide along one side of the quadrangle. Stunted,
boyish figures shambled hither and thither, unwillingly desert-
ing the rem.nants of half-eaten breakfasts, among the iron
mugs and platters of the long, deal tables of the refectory.
Chifney and Preiston — the head-lad — hurried them, shouting
orders, admonishing, inciting to greater rapidity of action.
And the boys were sulky. The thick morning had promoted
hopes of an hour or two of unwonted idleness. Now those
poor, little hopes were summarily blighted. Lazy, pinched
with cold by the raw morning air, still a bit hungry, sick even,
or downright frightened, they must mount and away — the long
line of race-horses streaming, in single file, up the hillside to
the exercising ground — with as short delay as possible, or Mr.
Chifney and his ash stick would know the reason why.

There were elements of brutality in the scene from which
Richard would, oftentimes, have recoiled. To-day he was
selfish, absorbed to the point of callousness. If he remarked
them at all, it was in bitter welcome, as he had welcomed the
chill and staring blankness of the fog. He was indifferent to
the fact that Chifney was harsh, the horses testy or wicked,
that the boys' noses were red, and that they blew their purple
fingers before laying hold of the reins in a vain attempt to
promote circulation. Dickie sat still as a statue in the midst
of all the turmoil, the handle of his crop resting on his thigh,
his eyes hot from sleeplessness and wild thoughts, his face
hard as marble. — Unhappy ? Wasn't he unhappy too ?
Suffer? Well, let them suff'er — within reasonable limits.
Suffering was the fundamental law of existence. They
must bow to the workings of it along with the rest.

But one wretched, little chap fairly blubbered. He had
been kicked in the stomach some three weeks earlier, and
had been in hospital. This was his first morning out. He
had grown soft, and was light-headed, his knees all of a shake.
By means of voluminous threats Preiston got him up. But
he sat his horse all of a huddle, as limp as a half-empty sack
of chaff. Richard looked on feeling, not pity, but only irrita-
tion, finally amounting to anger. The child's whole aspect

234 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

and the sniveling sounds he made were so hatefully ugly. It
disgusted him.

" Here Chifney, leave that fellow at home/' he said.
" He's no good."

" He's malingering, Sir Richard. I know his sort. Give
in to him now and we shall have the same game, and worse,
over again to-morrow."

" Very probably," Richard answered. '' Only it is evident
he has no more hand and no more grip than a sick cat to-day.
We shall have some mess with him, and I'm not in the humour
for a mess, so just leave him. There boy, stop crying. Do
you hear ? " he added, wheeling round on the small unfortu-
nate. " Mr. Chifney '11 give you another day off, and the
doctor will see you. Only if he reports you fit and you give
the very least trouble to-morrow, you'll be turned out of the
stables there and then. We've no use for shirkers. Do you
understand ? "

In spite of his irritation, the hardness of Richard's expres-
sion relaxed as he finished speaking. The poor, little beggar
was so abject — too abject indeed for common decency, since
he too, after all, was human. Richard's own self-respect
made it incumbent upon him to lift the creature out of the pit
of so absolutely unseemly a degradation. He looked kindly
at him, smiled, and promptly forgot all about him. While to
the boy it seemed that the gods had verily descended in the
likeness of men, and he would have bartered his little, dirty,
blear-eyed rudiment of a soul thenceforward for another such
a look from Richard Calmady.

Dickie promptly forgot the boy, yet some virtue must have
been in the episode for he began to feel better in himself. As
the horses filed away through the misty sunshine — Preiston
riding beside the fourth or fifth of the string, while Richard
and Chifney brought up the rear, his chestnut suiting its paces
to the shorter stride of the trainer's cob — the fever of the
night cooled down in him. Half thankfully, half amusedly,
he perceived things begin to assume their normal relations.
He filled his lungs with the pure air, felt the sun-dazzle pleas-
ant in his eyes. He had run somewhat mad in the last twenty-
four hours surely ? He was not such a fatuous ass as to have
mistaken Helen's frank camaraderie^ her bright interest in
things, her charming little ways of showing cousinly regard.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 235

for some deeper, more personal feeling ? She had been
divinely kind, bat that was just her — ^just the outcome of her
delightful nature. She would go away on Friday — Saturday
perhaps — he rather hoped Saturday — and be just as divinely
kind to other people. And then he shook himself, feeling the
languid weight of her hands on his shoulders again. Would
she — would — ? For an instant he wanted to get at, and in-
continently brain, those other people. After which, Richard
mentally took himself by the throat and proceeded to choke
the folly out of himself. Yes, she would go back to all those
other people, back moreover to the Vicomte de Vallorbes —
whom, by the way, it occurred to him she so seldom mentioned.
Well, we don't continually talk about the people we love best,
do we, to comparative strangers ? She would go back to her
husband — her husband. — Richard repeated the words over to
himself sternly, trying to drive them home, to burn them
into his consciousness past all possibility of forgetting.

Anyhow, she had been wonderfully sweet and charming to
him. She had shown him — quite unconsciously, of course —
what life might be for — for somebody else. She had revealed to
him — what indeed had she not revealed ! He remembered the
spirit of expectation that possessed him riding back through
the autumn woods the day he first met her. The expectation
had been more than justified by the sequel. Only — only —
and then Dick became stern with himself again. For, she
having, unconsciously, done so much for him, was it not his
first duty never to distress her ? — never to let her know how
much deeper it had all gone with him than with her? — never
to insult her beautiful innocence by a word or look suggesting
an affection less frank and cousinly than her own ?

Only, since even our strongest purposes have moments of
lapse and weakness in execution, it would be safer, perhaps, not
to be much alone with her — since she didn't know — how
should she ? Yes, Richard agreed with himself not to loaf,
to allow no idle hours. He would ride, he would see to busi-
ness. There were a whole heap of estate matters claiming
attention. He had neglected them shamefully of late. Un-
questionably Helen counted for very much, would continue to
do so. He supposed he would carry the ache of certain mem-
ories about with him henceforth and forever. She had become
part of the very fibre of his life. He never doubted that.

236 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

And yet, he told himself — assuming a second-hand garment
of slightly cynical philosophy which suited singularly ill with
the love-light in his eyes, there radiantly apparent for all the
world to see — that woman, even the one who first shows you
you have a heart — and a body too, worse luck — even she is
but a drop in the vast ocean of things. There remains all The
Rest. And with praiseworthy diligence Dickie set himself to
reckon how immensely much all The Rest amounts to. There
is plenty, exclusive of her, to think about. More than enough,
indeed, to keep one hard at work all day, and send one to bed
honestly tired, to sleeping-point, at night. Politics for instance,
science, literature, entertaining little controversial rows of sorts
— the simple, almost patriarchal duties of a great land-owner,
pleasant hobbies such as the collection of first editions, or a
pretty taste in the binding of favourite books — the observa-
tion of this mysterious, ever young, ever fertile nature around
him now, immutable order underlaying ceaseless change, the
ever new wonder and beauty of all that, and: — " I say, Chif-
ney, isn't the brown Lady-Love filly going rather short on
the off foreleg ? Anything wrong with her shoulder ? '' —
and sport. Yes, thank God, in the name of everything
healthy and virile, sport and, above all, horses — yes, horses.
Thus did Richard Calmady reason with and essay to solace
himself for the fact that some fruits are forbidden to him who
holds honour dear. Reasoned with and solaced himself to such
good purpose, as he fondly imagined, that when, an hour and
a half later, he established himself in the trainer's dining-
room, a mighty breakfast outspread before him, he felt quite
another man. Racing cups adorned the chimneypiece and
sideboard, portraits of race-horses and jockeys adorned the
walls. The sun streamed in between the red rep curtains,
causing the pot-plants in the window to give off a pleasant
scent, and the canary, in his swinging blue and white painted
cage above them, to sing. Mrs. Chifney, her cheeks pink.
Her manner slightly fluttered, — as were her lilac cap strings, —
presided over the silver tea and coffee service, admonished the
staid and bulky tom-cat who, jumping on the arm of Dickie's
chair, extended a scooping tentative paw towards his plate, and
issued gentle though peremptory orders to her husband regarding
the material needs of her guest. To Mrs- Chifney such enter-
tain ings as the present marked the red-letter days of her cal-

\

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 237

cndar. Temporarily she forgave Chifney the doubtful nature
of his calling and his occasional outbreaks of profane swearing
alike. She ceased to regret that snug might-have-been, little,
grocery business in a country town. She forgot even to
hanker after prayer meetings, anniversary teas, and other mild,
soul-saving dissipations unauthorised by the Church of Eng-
land. She ruffled her feathers, so to speak, and cooed to the
young man half in feudal, half in unsatisfied maternal affec-
tion— for Mrs. Chifney was childless. And it followed that
as he teased her a little, going back banteringly on certain ac-
cepted subjects of difference between them, praised, and made
a hole, in her fresh-baked rolls, her nicely browned, fried pota-
toes, her clear, crinkled rashers, assuring her it gave one an
appetite merely to sit down in a room so shiningly clean and
spick and span, she was supremely happy. And Dickie was
happy too, and blessed the exercise, the food, and the
society of these simple persons, which, after his evil night,
seemed to have restored to him his wiser and better self.

" He always was the noblest looking young gentleman I
ever saw," Mrs. Chifney remarked subsequently to her hus-
band. " But here at breakfast this morning, when he said,
*If you won't be shocked, Mrs. Chifney, I believe I could
manage a second helping of that game pie,' his face was like
a very angel's from heaven. Unearthly beautiful, Thomas,
and yet a sort of pain at the back of it. It gave me a regular
turn. I had to shed a few tears afterwards when I got alone
by myself."

"You're one of those that see more than's there, half your
time, Maria," the trainer answered, with an unusual effort
at sarcasm, for he was not wholly easy about the young man
himself. — "There's something up with him, and danged if I
know what it is." But these reflections he kept to himself.

Dr. Knott, later that same day, made reflections of a similar
nature. For though Dickie adhered valiantly to his good res-
olutions— going out with the second lot of horses between ten
and eleven o'clock, riding on to Banister's farm to inspect the
new barn and cowsheds in course of erection, then hurrying
down to Sandyfield Street and listening to long and heated
arguments regarding a right-of-way reported to exist across
the meadows skirting the river just above the bridge, a right
Strongly denied by the present occupier. Notwithstanding

238 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

these improving and public-spirited employments, the love«
light grew in his eyes all through the long morning, causing
his appearance to have something, if not actually angelic, yet
singularly engaging, about it. For, unquestionably, next to a
fortunate attachment, an unfortunate one, if honest, is among
the most inspiring and grace-begetting of possessions granted
to mortals. Helen must never know — that was well under-
stood. Yet the more Dickie thought the whole affair over,
the more he recognised the fine romance of thus cherishing a
silent and secret devotion. He was very young in this line as
yet, it may be observed. Meanwhile it was nearly twa
o'clock. He would need to ride home sharply if he was to be
in time for luncheon. And at luncheon he would meet her.
And remembering that, his heart — traitorous heart — beat
quick, and his lips — traitorous lips — began to repeat her
name. Thus do the gods of life and death love to play chuck-
farthing with the wise purposes of men, the theory of the
eternal laughter having a root of truth in it, as it would seem,
after all ! And there ahead of him, under the shifting, dappled
shadow of the overarching firs. Dr. Knott's broad, cumber-
some back, and high, two-wheeled trap blocked the road^
while Timothy, the old groom, — stifF-kneed now and none
too active, — slowly pushed open the heavy, white gate of the
inner park.

As Richard rode up, the doctor turned in his seat and looked
at him from under his rough eyebrows, while his loose lips
worked into a half-ironical smile. He loved this lad of great
fortune, and great misfortune, more tenderly than he quite cared
to own. Then, as Dick checked his horse beside the cart, he
growled out : —

" No need to make anxious Inquiries regarding your healthy
young sir. What have you been doing with yourself, eh ?
You look as fit as a fiddle and as fresh as paint."

"If I look as I feel I must look ravenously hungry,""
Richard answered, flushing up a little. " I've been out since

SIX."

" Had some breakfast ? "

" Oh dear, yes ! Enough to teach one to know what a jolljr
thing a good meal is, and make one wish for another."

"Hum!" Dr. Knott said. "That's a healthy state of
affairs, anyhow. Young horses going well ? "

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 239

" Famously."

" Bless me, everything's beer and skittles with you just at
present then ! "

Richard looked away down the smooth yellow road whereon
the dappled shadows kissed and mingled, mingled and kissed,
and his heart cried " Helen, Helen," once again.

" Oh ! I don't know about that," he said. " I get my
share as well as the rest I suppose — at least — anyway the
horses are doing capitally this season."

"I should like to have a look at them."

" Oh, well you've only got to say when, you know. I
shall be only too delighted to show them you."

As he walked the trap through the gateway, Dr. Knott
watched Richard riding alongside. — "What's up with the
boy," he thought. " His face is as keen as a knife, and as
soft as — God help us, I hope there's no sweethearting on
hand ! It's bound to come sooner or later, but the later the
better, for it'll be a risky enough set out, come when it may.
— Ah, look out there now, you old fool," — this to Timothy,
— " don't go missing the step and laying yourself up with
broken ribs for another three months, just when my work's at
its heaviest. Be careful, can't you ? "

" But why not come in to luncheon now ? " Richard said,
wisdom whipping up good resolutions once more, and bidding
him check the gladness that gained on him at thought of that
approaching meeting. Oh yes! he would be discreet, he
would erect barriers, he would flee temptation. Knott's
presence offered a finely rugged barrier, surely. Therefore,
he repeated, " Come in now. My mother will be delighted
to see you, and wc can have a look round the stables after-
wards."

" I'll come fast enough if Lady Calmady will take me as I
am. Workaday clothes, and second best lot at that. You're
alone, I suppose ? "

He watched the young man as he spoke. Noted the lift of
his chin, and the slightly studied indifference of his manner.

" No, for once we're not. But that doesn't matter. My
Uncle William Ormiston is with us. You remember him ? "

" I remember his wife."

" Oh ! she's not here," Dickie said, " Only he and his
daughter, Madame de Vallorbes. You'll come ? "

240 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Oh ! dear yes, I'll come, if you'll be good enough to pre-
pare your ladies for a rough-looking customer. Don't let me
keep you. Wonder what the daughter's like ? " he added to
himself. ^' The mother was a bit of a baggage."

CHAPTER VII

WHEREIN THE READER IS COURTEOUSLY INVITED TO IMPROVE
HIS ACQUAINTANCE WITH CERTAIN PERSONS OF qUALITY

XJUT Richard might have spared himself the trouble of
'^ erecting barriers against too intimate intercourse with
his cousin. Providence, awaking suddenly as it would seem,
to the perils of his position, had already seen to all that. For
since he went forth, hot-eyed and hot-headed, into the blank
chill of the fog, the company at Brockhurst — as Powell an-
nounced to him — had suffered large and unlooked-for increase*
Ludovic Quayle was the first of the self-invited guests to
appear when Richard was settled in the dining-room. He
sauntered up to the head of the table with his accustomed air
of slightly supercilious inquiry, as of one who expects to meet
little save fools and foolishness, yet suffers these gladly, being
quite secure of his own wisdom.

" How are you, Dickie ? " he said. '* Fairly robust I hope,
for the Philistines are upon you. Still it might have been
worse. I have done what I could. My father, who has never
grasped that there is an element of comedy in the numerical
strength of his family, wished to bring us over a party of
eight. But I stopped that. Four, as I tried to make him
comprehend, touched the limits of social decency. He didn't
comprehend. He rarely does. But he yielded, which was
more to the point perhaps. Understand though, we didn't
propose to add surprise to the other doubtful blessings of our
descent on you. I wrote to you yesterday, but it appears you
went out at some unearthly hour this morning superior alike
to the state of the weather and arrival of your letters."

" Fine thing going out early — excellent thing going out
early. Very glad to see you, Calmady, and very kind indeed

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 241

of you and Lady Calmady to take us In in this friendly way
and show us hospitality at such short notice "

This from Lord P'aliowfeild — a remarkably tall, large, and
handsome person. He affected a slightly antiquated style of
dress, with a sporting turn to it, — coats of dust colour or gray,
notably long as to the skirts, well fitted at the waist, the sur-
face of them traversed by heavy seams. His double chin
rested within the points of a high, white collar, and was fur-
ther supported by voluminous, black, satin stock. His face,
set in soft, gray hair and gray whisker, brushed well forward,
suggested that of a benign and healthy infant — an infant, it
may be added, possessed of a small and particularly pretty
mouth. Save in actual stature, indeed, his lordship had never
quite succeeded in growing up. Very full of the milk of
human kindness, he earnestly wished his fellow-creatures —
gentle and simple alike — to be as contented and happy as he,
almost invariably, himself was. When he had reason to be-
lieve them otherwise, it perplexed and worried him greatly.
It followed that he was embarrassed, apologetic even, in Rich-
ard Calmady's presence. He felt vaguely responsible as for
some neglected duty, as though there was something somehow
which he ought to set right. And this feeling harassed him,
increasing the natural discursiveness and inconsequence of his
speech. He was so terribly nervous of forgetting and of hurt-
ing the young man's feelings by saying the wrong thing, that
all possible wrong things got upon his brain, with the disas-
trous result that of course he ended by saying them. In face
of a person so sadly stationary as poor Dick, moreover, his
own perfect ability to move freely about appeared to him as
little short of discourteous, not to say coarse. He, therefore,
tried to keep very still, with the consequence that he devel-
oped an inordinate tendency to fidget. Altogether Lord Fal-
lowfeild did not show to advantage in Richard Calmady's
company.

"Ah, yes ! fine thing going out early," he repeated.
" Always made a practice of it myself at your age, Calmady.
Can't stand doctor's stuff, don't believe in it, never did.
Though I like Knott, good fellow Knott — al^yays have liked
Knott. But never was a believer in drugs. Nothing better
than a good sharp walk, now, early, really early before the
frost's out of the grass. Excellent for the liver walking **

242 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Here, perceiving that his son Ludovic looked very hard at
him, eyebrows raised to most admonitory height, he added
hastily —

" Eh ? — yes, of course, or riding. Riding, nothing like
that for health — better exercise still "

" Is it ? " Richard put in. He was too busy with his own
thoughts to be greatly affected by Lord Fallowfeild's blunders
just then. " Fm glad to know you think so. You see it's a
matter in which I'm not very much of a judge."

" No — no — of course not. — Queer fellow Calmady," Lord
Fallowfeild added to himself. " Uncommonly sharp way he
has of setting you down."

But just then, to his relief, Lady Calmady, Lady Louisa
Barking, and pretty^Jittle Lady Constance Quayle entered the
room together. Mr. Ormiston and John Knott followed en-
gaged in close conversation, the rugged, rough-hewn aspect of
the letter presenting a strong contrast to the thin, tall figure
and face, white and refined to the point of emaciation, of the
diplomatist. Julius March, accompanied by Camp — still
carrying his tail limp and his great head rather sulkily — brought
up the rear. And Dickie, while greeting his guests, disposing
their places at table, making civil speeches to his immediate
neighbour on the left, — Lady Louisa, — smiling a good-morn-
ing to his mother down the length of the table, felt a wave of
childish disappointment sweep over him. For Helen came
not, and with a great desiring he desired her. Poor Dickie, so
wise, so philosophic in fancy, so enviably, disastrously young
in fact !

" Oh ! thanks. Lady Louisa — it's so extremely kind of you
to care to come. The fog was rather beastly this morning
wasn't it ? And I shouldn't be surprised if it came down on
us again about sunset. But it's a charming day meanwhile. —
There Ludovic please, — next Dr. Knott. We'll leave this
chair for Madame de Vallorbes. She's coming, I suppose ? '*

And Richard glanced towards the door again, and, so doing,
became aware that little Lady Constance, sitting between
Lord Fallowfeild and Julius March, was staring at him. She
had an innocent face, a small, feminine copy of her father's
save that her eyes were set noticeably far apart. This gave
her a slow, ruminant look, distinctly attractive. She reminded
Richard of a gentle, well-conditioned, sweet-breathed calf

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 243

staring over a bank among ox-eyed daisies and wild roses. As
soon as she perceived — but Lady Constance did not perceive
anything very rapidly — that he observed her, she gave her
whole attention to the contents of her plate and her colour
deepened perceptibly.

" Pretty country about you here, uncommonly pretty," Lord
Fallowfeild was saying in response to some remark of Lady
Calmady's. "Always did admire it. Always liked a meet on
this side of the county when I had the hounds. Very pleasant
friendly spirit on this side too. Now Cathcart, for instance —
sensible fellow Cathcart, always have liked Cathcart, remark-
ably sensible fellow. Plain man though — quite astonishingly
plain. Daughter very much like him, I remember. Misfor-
tune for a girl that. Always feel very much for a plain woman.
She married well though — can't recall who just now, but
somebody we all know. Who was it now. Lady Calmady ? "

Between that haunting sense of embarrassment, and the
kindly wish to carry things off well, and promote geniality.
Lord Fallowfeild spoke loud. At this juncture Mr. Quayle
folded his hands and raised his eyes devoutly to heaven.

"Oh, my father! oh, my father ! " he murmured. Then
he leant a little forward watching Lady Calmady.

" But, as you may remember, Mary Cathcart had a charm-
ing figure," she was saying, very sweetly, essaying to soften
the coming blow.

" Ah ! had she though ? Great thing a good figure. I
knew she married well."

" Naturally I agree with you there. I suppose one always
thinks one's own people the most delightful in the world.
She married my brother."

" Did she though ! " Lord Fallowfeild exclaimed, with much
interest. Then suddenly his tumbler stopped half-way to his
mouth, while he gazed horror-stricken across the table at Mr.
Ormiston.

" Oh no, no ! not that brother," Katherine added quickly.
"The younger one, the soldier. You wouldn't remember
him. He's been on foreign service almost ever since his mar-
riage. They are at the Cape now."

" Oh ! ah ! yes — indeed, are they ? " he exclaimed. He
breathed more easily. Those few thousand miles to the Cape
were a great comfort to him. A man could not overhear your

244 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

strictures on his wife's personal appearance at that distance
anyhow. — " Very charming woman, uncommonly tactful
woman, Lady Calmady," he said to himself gratefully.

Meanwhile Lady Louisa Barking, at the other end of the
table, addressed her discourse to Richard and Julius, on either
side of her, in the high, penetrating key affected by certain
ladies of distinguished social pretensions. Whether this man-
ner of speech implies a fine conviction of superiority on the
part of the speaker, or a conviction that all her utterances are
replete with intrinsic interest, it is difficult to determine. Cer-
tain it is that Lady Louisa practically addressed the table, the
attendant men-servants, all creation in point of fact, as well as
her two immediate neighbours. Like her father she was large
and handsome. But her expression lacked his amiability, her
attitude his pleasing self-distrust. In age she was about six-
and-thirty and decidedly mature for that. She possessed a re-
markable power of concentrating her mind upon her own
affairs. She also laboured under the impression that she was
truly religious, listening weekly to the sermons of fashionable
preachers on the convenient text that "worldliness is next to
godliness " and entertaining prejudices, finely unqualified by
accurate knowledge, against the abominable errors of Rome.

" I was getting so terribly fagged with canvassing that my
doctor told me I really must go to Whitney and recruit. Of
course Mr. Barking is perfectly secure of his seat. I am in
no real anxiety, I am thankful to say. He does not speak
much in the House. But I always feel speaking is quite a
minor matter, don't you ? "

" Doubtless," Julius said, the remark appearing to be de-
livered at him in particular.

" The great point is that your party should be able to depend
absolutely upon your loyalty. Being rather behind the scenes,
as I can't help being, you know, I do feel that more and more.
And the party depends absolutely upon Mr. Barking. He has
so much moral stamina, you know. That is what they all
feel. He is ready at any moment to sacrifice his private con-
victions to party interests. And so few members of any real
position are willing to do that. And so, of course, the leaders
do depend on him. All the members of the Government con-
sult him in private."

" That is very flattering," Richard remarked. — Still Helen

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 245

tarried, while again, glancing in the direction of the door, he
encountered Lady Constance's mild, ruminant stare.

" Can one pronounce anything flattering when one sees it to
be so completely deserved ? " Ludovic Quayle inquired in
his most urbane manner. " Prompt and perpetual sacrifice of
private conviction to party interest, for example — how can
such devotion receive recognition beyond its deserts ? "

" Do have some more partridge, Lady Louisa," Richard
put in hastily.

" In any case such recognition is very satisfactory. — No
more, thank you. Sir Richard," the lady replied, not without a
touch of acerbity. Ludovic was very clever no doubt ; but
his comments often struck her as being in equivocal taste. He
gave a turn to your words you did not expect and so broke the
thread of your conversation in a rather exasperating fashion.
*' Very satisfactory," she repeated. ^' And, of course, the con-
stituency is fully informed of the attitude of the Government
towards Mr. Barking, so that serious opposition is out of the
question."

"Oh ! of course," Richard echoed.

" Still I feel it a duty to canvass. One can point out many
things to the constituents in their own homes which might not
come quite so well, don't you know, from the platform. And
of course they enjoy seeing one so much."

" Of course, it makes a great change for them," Richard
echoed dutifully^

" Exactly, and so on their account, quite putting aside the
chance of securing a stray vote here or there, I feel it a duty
not to spare myself, but to go through with it just for their
sakes, don't you know."

" My sister is nothing if not altruistic, you'll find,
Calmady," A4r. Quayle here put in in his most exquisitely
amiable manner.

But now encouraged thereto by Lady Calmady, Lord
Fallowfeild had recovered his accustomed serenity and dis-
coursed with renewed cheerfulness.

" Great loss to this side of the county, my poor friend
Denier," he remarked. " Good fellow Denier — always liked
Denier. Stood by him from the first — so did your son. — No,
no, pardon me — yes, to be sure — excellent claret this — never
tasted a better luncheon claret. — Bit there was a little preju-

246 SIR RICHARD CALMADY .

dice, little narrowness of feeling about Denier, when he first
bought Grimshott and settled down here. Self-made man^
you see, Denier. Entirely self-made. Father was a clergy-
man, I believe, and I'm told his grandfather kept an umbrella
shop in the Strand. But a very able, right-minded man
Denier, and wonderfully good-natured fellow, always willing
to give you an opinion on a point of law. Great advantage
to have a first-rate authority like that to turn to in a legal
difficulty. Very useful in county business Denier, and laid
hold of country life wonderfully, understood the obligations
of a land-owner. Always found a fox in that Grimshott gorse
of his, eh, Knott ? "

" Fox that sometimes wasn't very certain of his country,'^
the doctor rejoined. " Hailed from the neighbourhood of the
umbrella shop perhaps, and wanted to get home to it."

Lord Fallowfeild chuckled.

^' Capital," he said, " very good — capital. Still, it's a great
relief to know of a sure find like that. Keeps the field
in a good temper. Yes, few men whose death I've regretted
more than poor Denier's. I miss Denier. Not an old man
either. Shouldn't have let him slip through your fingers so
early, Knott, eh ? "

" Oh ! that's a question of forestry," John Knott answered
grimly. " If one kept the old wood standing, where would the
saplings' chances come in ? "

" Oh ! ah ! yes — never thought of that before," — and think-
ing of it now the noble lord became slightly pensive. " Wonder
if it's unfair my keeping Shotover so long out of the prop-
erty ? " he said to himself. " Amusing fellow Shotover, very
fond of Shotover — but extravagant fellow, monstrously ex-
travagant."

"Lord Denier's death gave our host here a seat on the
local bench just at the right moment," the doctor went on.
" One man's loss is another man's opportunity. Rather
rough, perhaps, on the outgoing man, but then things usually
are pretty rough on the outgoing man in my experience."

" I suppose they are," Lord Fallowfeild said, rather ruefully,
his face becoming preternaturally solemn.

" Not a doubt of it. The individual may get justice. I
hope he does. But mercy is kept for special occasions — few
and far between. One must take things on the large scale.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 247

Then you find they dovetail very neatly/' Knott continued,
with a somewhat sardonic mirthfulness. The simplicity and
perplexity of this handsome, kindly gentleman, amused him
hugely. " But to return to Lord Denier — let alone my skill,
that of the u'hole medical faculty put together couldn't have
saved him."

" Couldn't it, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild.

"That's just the bother with your self-made man. He
makes himself — true. But he spends himself physically in the
making. All his vitality goes in climbing the ladder, and he's
none left over by the time he reaches the top. Lord Denier
bad worked too hard as a youngster to make old bones. It's
a long journey from the shop in the Strand to the woolsack
you see, and he took silk at two-and-thirty I believe. Oh
yes ! early death, or premature decay, is the price most out-
siders pay for a great professional success. Isn't that so, Mr.
Ormiston ? "

But at this juncture the conversation suffered interruption
by the throwing open of the door and entrance of Madame de
Vallorbes.

" Pray let no one move," she said, rather as issuing an order
than preferring a request — for her father. Lord Fallowfeild, all
the gentlemen, had risen on her appearance — save Richard. —
Richard, his blue eyes ablaze, the corners of his mouth
a-tremble, his heart going forth tumultuously to meet her, yet
he alone ©f all present denied the little obvious act of outward
courtesy from man to woman.

" Pinned to his chair, like a specimen beetle to a col-
lector's card," John Knott said grimly to himself. "Poor
dear lad — and with that face on him too. I hoped he
might have been spared taking fire a little longer. However,
here's the conflagration. No question about that. Now let's
have a look at the lady."

And the lady, it must be conceded, manifested herself under
a new and somewhat agitating aspect, as she swept up the room
and into the vacant place at Richard's right hand with a rush
of silken skirts. She produced a singular effect at once of
energy and self-concentration — her lips thin and unsmiling, an
ominous vertical furrow between the spring of her arched eye-
brows, her eyes narrow, unresponsive, severe with thought
under their delicate lids.

248 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" I am sorry to be late, but it was unavoidable. I was
kept by some letters forwarded from Newlands/' she said,
without giving herself the trouble of looking at Richard as she
spoke.

"What does it matter? Luncheon's admittedly a movable
feast, isn't it ? "

Madame de Vallorbes made no response. A noticeable
hush had descended upon the whole company, while the men-
servants moved to and fro serving the newcomer. Even
Lady Louisa Barking ceased to hold high discourse, political or
other, and looked disapprovingly across the table. An hour
earlier she had resented the younger woman's merry wit, now
she resented her sublime indifference. Both then and now
she found her perfect finish of appearance unpardonable.
Lord Fallowfeild's disjointed conversation also suffered check.
He fidgeted, vaguely conscious that the atmosphere had be-
come somewhat electric. — " Monstrously pretty woman —
effective woman — very effective — rather dangerous though.
Changeable too. Made me laugh a little too much before
luncheon. Louisa didn't like it. Very correct views, my
daughter Louisa. Now seems in a very odd temper. Quite
the grand air, but reminds me of somebody I've seen on the
Stage somehow. Suppose all that comes of living so much in
France," he said to himself. But for the life of him he could
not think of anything to say aloud, though he felt it would be
eminently tactful to throw in a casual remark at this juncture.
Little Lady Constance was disquieted likewise. For she, girl-
like, had fallen dumbly and adoringly in love with this beauti-
ful stranger but a few years her senior. And now the stranger
appeared as an embodiment of unknown emotions and ener-
gies altogether beyond the scope of her small imagination.
Her innocent stare lost its ruminant quality, became alarmed,
tearful even, while she instinctively edged her chair closer to
her father's. There was a great bond of sympathy between the
simple-hearted gentleman and his youngest child. Mr.
Quayle looked on with lifted eyebrows and his air of amused
forbearance. And Dr. Knott looked on also, but that which
he saw pleased him but moderately. The grace of every
movement, the distinction of face and figure, the charm of that
finely-poised, honey-coloured head showing up against the
background of gray-blue tapestried wall, were enough, he

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 24^

owned — having a very pretty taste in women as well as irr
horses — to drive many a man crazy. — " But if the mother's a
baggage, the daughter's a vixen," he said to himself. " And,
upon my soul if I had to choose between 'em — which God
Almighty forbid — I'd take my chance with the baggage." As
climax Lady Calmady's expression was severe. She sat very
upright, and made no effort at conversation. Her nerves were
a little on edge. There had been awkward moments during
this meal, and now her niece's entrance struck her as unfor-
tunately accentuated, while there was that in Richard's aspect
which startled the quick fears and jealousies of her motherhood.

And to Richard himself, it must be owned, this meeting so
hotly desired, and against the dangers of which he had so wisely
guarded, came in fashion altogether different to that which he
had pictured. Helen's manner was cold to a point far from
flattering to his self-esteem. The subtle intimacies of the
scene in the Long Gallery became as though they had never
been. Dickie thinking over his restless night, his fierce efforts
at self-conquest, those long hours in the saddle designed for
the reduction of a perfervid Imagination, wrote himself down
an ass indeed. And yet — yet — the charm of Helen's presence
was great. And surely she wasn't quite herself just now^
there was something wrong with her? Anybody could see
that. Everybody did see it in fact, he feared, and commented
upon it in no charitable spirit. Hostility towards her declared
itself on every side. He detected that — or imagined he did so
— in Lady Louisa's expression, in Ludovic Quayle's extra-
superfine smile, in the doctor's close and rather cynical attitude
of observation, and, last but not least, in the reserve of his
mother's bearing and manner. And this hostility, real or
imagined, begot in Richard a new sensation — one of tender-
ness, wholly unselfish and protective, while the fighting blood
stirred in him. He grew slightly reckless.

" What has happened ? We appear to have fallen most un«
accountably silent," he said, looking round the table, with an
air of gallant challenge pretty to see.

" So we have, though," exclaimed Lord Fallowfelld, half In
relief, half in apology. " Very true — was just thinking the
same thing myself."

While Mr. Quayle, leaning forward, inquired with much
sweetness: — ^^To whom shall T t^lk ? Madame de VaJlorbes

250 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

IS far more profitably engaged in discussing her luncheon,
than she could be in discussing any conceivable topic of con-
versation with such as I. And Dr. Knott is so evidently diag-
nosing an interesting case that I have not the effrontery to in-
terrupt him."

Disregarding these comments Richard turned to his neigh-
bour on the left.

"I beg your pardon, Lady Louisa," he said, "but before this
singular dumbness overtook us all, you vi^ere saying ? " —

The lady addressed, electing to accept this as a tribute to
the knowledge, and the weight, and distinction, of her dis-
course, thawed, became condescending and gracious again.

" I believe we w^ere discussing the prospects of the party,"
she* replied. " I was saying that, you know, of course there
must be a large Liberal majority."

" Yes, of course."

" You consider that assured ? " Julius put in civilly.

" It is not a matter of personal opinion, I am thankful to
say — because of course every one must feel it is just everything
for the country. There is no doubt at all about the majority
among those who really know — Mr. Barking, for instance.
Nobody can be in a better position to judge than he is. And
then I was speaking the other night to Augustus Tremiloe at
Lord Combmartin's — not William, you know, but Augustus
Tremiloe, the man in the Treasury, and he "

" Uncommonly fine chrysanthemums those," Lord Fallow-
feild had broken forth cheerfully, finding sufficient, if tardy,
inspiration in the table decorations. " Remarkably perfect
blossoms and charming colour. Nothing nearly so good at
Whitney this autumn. Excellent fellow my head gardener, but
rather past his work — no enterprise, can't make him go in for
new ideas."

Mr. Ormiston, leaning across Dr. Knott, addressed himself
to Ludovic, while casting occasional and rather anxious glances
upon his daughter. Thus did voices rise, mingle, and the talk
get fairly upon its legs again. Then Richard permitted him-
self to say quietly —

*' You had no bad news, I hope, in those letters, Helen ? "

" Why should you suppose I have had bad news ? " she
demanded, her teeth meeting viciously in the morsel of kiss-
ing-crust she held in her rosy-tipped fingers.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 25 e

It was as pretty as a game to see her eat, Dickie laughed
a little, charmed even with her naughtiness^ embarrassed too,
by the directness of her question.

" Oh ! I don't exactly know why — I thought perhaps you
seemed "

"You do know quite exactly why," the young lady as-
serted, looking full at him. ^^ You saw that I was in a detest-
able, a diabolic temper."

" Well, perhaps I did think I saw something of the sort,"
Richard answered audaciously, yet very gently.

Helen continued to look at him, and as she did so her cheek
rounded, her mouth grew soft, the vertical line faded out from
her forehead. — "You are very assuaging. Cousin Richard,"
she said, and she too laughed softly.

" Understands the vineries very well though," Lord Fallow*
feild was saying ; ^' and doesn't grow bad peaches, not at alh
bad peaches, but is stupid about flowers. He ought to retire..
Never shall have really satisfactory gardens till he does retire-
And yet I haven't the heart to tell him to go. Good fellow,.,
you know, good, honest, hard-working fellow, and had a lot of
trouble. Wife ailing for years, always ailing, and youngest
child got hip disease — nasty thing hip disease, very nasty —
quite a cripple, poor little creature, I am afraid a hopeless
cripple. Terrible anxiety and burden for parents in that rank:
of life, you know."

" It can hardly be otherwise in any rank of life," Lady
Calmady said slowly, bitterly. An immense weariness was
upon her — weariness of the actual and present, weariness of
the possible and the future. Her courage ebbed. She longed
to go away, to be alone for a while, to shut eyes and ears, to
deaden alike perception and memory, to have it all cease.
Then it was as though those two beautiful, and now laughing,
faces of man and woman in the glory of their youth, seen over
the perspective of fair, white damask, glittering glass and
silver, rich dishes, graceful profusion of flowers and fruit, at
the far end of the avenue of guests, mocked at her. Did
they not mock at the essential conditions of their own lives too?
Katherine feared, consciously or unconsciously they did that*
Her weariness dragged upon her with almost despairing weights

" Do you get your papers the same day here. Sir Richard ? '*'
Lady Louisa asked imperatively.

252 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"Yes, they come with the second post letters, about five
o'clock," Julius March answered.

But Lady Louisa Barking intended to be attended to by her
host.

"Sir Richard/' she paused, "I am asking whether your
papers reach you the same day ? "

And Dickie replied he knew not what, for he had just reg-
istered the discovery that barriers are quite useless against a
certain sort of intimacy. Be the crowd never so thick about
you, in a sense at least, you are always alone, exquisitely, del-
icately, alone with the person you love.

CHAPTER VIII

31ICHARD PUTS HIS HAND TO A PLOUGH FROM WHICH
THERE IS NO TURNING BACK

T^EAREST mother, you look most deplorably tired."
"^^^ Richard sat before the large study table, piled up

with letters, papers, county histories, racing calendars, in the
Gun-Room, amid a haze of cigar smoke. " I don't wonder,"
he went on, " we've had a regular field-day, haven't we ? And
I'm afraid Lord Fallowfeild bored you atrociously at luncheon.
He does talk most admired foolishness half his time, poor old
boy. All the same Ludovic shouldn't show him up as he
does. It's not good form. I'm afraid Ludovic's getting
rather spoilt by London. He's growing altogether too finick-
ing and elaborate. It's a pity. Lady Louisa Barking is a rather
exterminating person. Her conversation is magnificently
deficient in humour. It is to be hoped Barking is not
troubled by lively perceptions or he must suffer at times.
Lady Constance is a pretty little girl, don't you think so ?
Not oppressed with brains, I dare say, but a good little sort."

"You liked her? " Katherine said. She stood beside him,
that mortal weariness upon her yet.

"Oh yes ! — well enough — liked her in passing, as one likes
the wild roses in the hedge. But you look regularly played
^ut, mother, and I don't \ike that in the least."

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

253

Richard twisted the revolvlng-chair half round, and held
out his arms in invitation. As his mother leaned over him^
he stretched upward and clasped his hands lightly about her
neck. — " Poor dear," he said coaxingly, " worn to fiddle-
strings with all this wild dissipation ! I declare it's quite
pathetic.'' — He let her go, shrugging his shoulders with a sigh
and a half laugh. " Well, the dissipation will soon enough
be over now, and we shall resume the even tenor of our way^
I suppose. You'll be glad of that, mother ? "

The caress had been grateful to Katherine, the cool cheek:
dear to her lips, the clasp of the strong arms reassuring. Yet,,
in her present state of depression, she was inclined to distrust,
even that which consoled, and there seemed a lack in the
fervour of this embrace. Was it not just a trifle perfunctory^,
as of one who pays toll, rather than of one who claims a
privilege ?

" You'll be glad too, my dearest, I trust ? " she said, crav-
ing further encouragement.

Richard twisted the chair back Into place again, leaned for-
ward to note the hour of the clock set in the centre of the
gold and enamel inkstand.

" Oh ! I'm not prophetic. I don't pretend to go before the
event and register my sensations until both they and I have
fairly arrived. It's awfully bad economy to get ahead of
yourself and live in the day after to-morrow. To-day's
enough — more than enough for you, I'm afraid, when you've
had a large contingent of the Whitney people to luncheon,.
Do go and rest, mother. Uncle William is disposed of. I've
started him out for a tramp with Julius, so you need not have
him on your mind."

But neither in Richard's words nor In his manner did Lady
Calmady find the fulness of assurance she craved.

'^Thanks dearest," she said. "That is very thoughtful of
you. I will see Helen and find out "

" Oh ! don't trouble about her either," Richard put in^
Again he studied the jewel-rimmed dial of the little clock. "I
found she wanted to go to Newlands to bid Mrs. Cathcart
good-bye. It seems Miss St. Quentin is back there for a day
or two. So I promised to drive her over as soon as we were,
quit of the Fallowfeild party."

" It is late for so long a drive."

cc

254 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Richard looked up quickly and his face wore that expression
of challenge once again.

" I know it is — and so I am afraid we ought to start at
once. I expect the carriage round immediately." Then re-
penting:— " You'li fake care of yourself won't you, mother,
and rest ? '*

Oh yes ! I will take care of myself," Katherine said.

Indeed, I appear to be the only person I have left to take
care of, thanks to your forethought. All good go with you,
Dick."

It followed — perhaps unreasonably enough — that Richard,
rsome five minutes later, drove round the angle of the house
and drew the mail-phaeton up at the foot of the gray, griffin-
guarded flight of steps — whereon Madame de Vallorbes,
wrapped in furs, the cavalier hat and its trailing plumes shad-
owing the upper part of her face and her bright hair, awaited
his coming — in a rather defiant humour. His cousin was
troubled, worried, and she met with scant sympathy. This
aroused all his chivalry. Whatever she wished for, that he
could give her, she should very certainly have. Of after con-
sequences to himself he was contemptuous. The course of
action which had shown as wisdom a couple of hours ago,
showed now as selfishness and pusillanimity. If she wanted
him, he was there joyfully to do her bidding, at whatever cost
to himself in subsequent unrest of mind seemed but a small
thing. If heartache and insidious provocations of the flesh
came later, let them come. He was strong enough to bear
the one and crush out the other, he hoped. It would give
him something to do — he told himself, a little bitterly — and he
had been idle of late !

And so it came about that Richard Calmady held out his
hand, to help his cousin into her place at his side, with more
of meaning and welcome in the gesture than he was quite
aware. He forgot the humiliation of the broad strap
about his waist, of the high, ingeniously contrived driving-
iron against which his feet rested, steadying him upon the
sharply sloping seat. These were details, objectionable ones
it was true, but, to-day, of very secondary importance. In
the main he was master of the situation. For once it was his
to render, rather than receive, assistance. Helen was under his
care, in a measure dependent on him, and this gratified his

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 255

young, masculine pride, doomed too often to suffer sharp
mortification. A fierce pleasure possessed him. It was fine
to bear her thus away, behind the fast trotting horses, through
the pensive, autumn brightness. Boyish self-consciousness
and self-distrust died down in Richard, and the man's self-
reliance, instinct of possession and of authority, grew in him..
His tone was that of command, for all its solicitude, as he
said : —

" Look here, are you sure you've got enough on ? Don^t
go and catch cold, under the impression that there's any
meaning in this sunshine. It is sure to be chilly driving
home, and it's easy to take more wTaps."

Helen shook her head, unsmiling, serious.

" I could face polar snows."

Richard let the horses spring forward, while little pebble?
rattled against the body of the phaeton, and the groom, run-
ning a few steps, swung himself up on to the back seat, im-
mediately becoming immovable as a wooden image, with,
rigidly folded arms.

" Oh ! the cold won't quite amount to that," Richard said.
" But I observe women rarely reckon with the probabilities of
the return journey."

" The return journey is invariably too hot, or too cold, too-
soon, or too late — for a woman. So it is better not to re-
member its existence until you are compelled to do so. For
myself, I confess to the strongest prejudice against the return
journey."

Madame de Vallorbes' speech was calm and measured, yet
there was a conviction in it suggestive of considerable emo-
tion. She sat well back in the carriage, her head turned
slightly to the left, so that Richard, looking down at her, saw
^.ittle but the pure firm line of her jaw, the contour of her
cheek, and her ear — small, lovely, the soft hair curling away
from above and behind it in the most enticing fashion.
Physical perfection, of necessity, provoked in him a peculiar
envy and delight. And nature appeared to have taken in-
genious pleasure, not only in conferring an unusual degree of
beauty upon his companion, but in finishing each detail of her
person with unstinted grace. For a while the young man lost
himself in contemplation of that charming car and partially
averted face. Then resolutely he bestowed his attention upon

:256 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the horses again, finding such contemplation slightly enerva-
ting to his moral sense.

"Yes, return journeys are generally rather a nuisance, I
suppose," he said, " though my experience of that particular
form of nuisance is limited. I have not been outward-bound
often enough to know much of the regret of being home-
ward-bound. And yet, I own, I should not much mind driv-
ing on and on everlastingly on a dreamy afternoon like this,
and — and as I find myself just now — driving on and seeking
some El Dorado — of the spirit, I mean, not of the pocket —
seeking the Fortunate Isles that lie beyond the sunset. For it
would be not a little fascinating to give one's accustomed self,
and all that goes to make up one's accepted identity, the slip
— to drive clean out of one's old circumstances and find new
heavens, a new earth, and a new personality elsewhere.
What do you say, Helen, shall we try it ? "

But Helen sat immobile, her face averted, listening intently,
revolving many things in her mind, meditating how and when
most advantageously to speak.

" It would be such .an amiable and graceful experiment to
try on my own people, too, wouldn't it ? " the young man
continued, VvMth a sudden change of tone. "And I am so
eminently fitted to lose myself in a crowd without fear of
recognition, just the person for a case of mistaken identity ! "

^^ Do not say such things, Richard, please. They distress
me," Madame de Vallorbes put in quickly. " And, believe
me, I have no quarrel with the return journey in this case.
At Brockhurst I could fancy myself to have found the For-
tunate Isles of which you spoke just now. I have been very
happy there — too happy, perhaps, and therefore, to-day, the
whip has come down across my back, just to remind me."

"Ah ! now you say the painful things," Dick interrupted.
*' Pray don't — I — I don't like them."

Madame de Vallorbes turned her head and looked at him
^with the strangest expression.

" My metaphor was not out of place. Do you imagine
horses are the only animals a man drives, mon beau cousin ?
Some men drive the woman who belongs to them, and that
not with the lightest bit, I promise you. Nor do they for-
;get to tie blood-knots in the whip-lash when it suits them to
ado so."

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 257

" What do you mean ? " he asked abruptly.

" Merely that the letters, which so stupidly endangered my
self-control at luncheon, contained examples of that kind of
driving."

" How — how damnable," the young man said between his
teeth. _-._-,,^^

The redarm purple trunks of the great fir trees reeled
away to right and left as the carriage swept forward down the
long avenue. To Richard's seeing they reeled away in dis-
gust, even as did his thought from the images which his com-
panion's words suggested. While, to her seeing, they reeled^
smitten by the eternal laughter, the echoes of which it stimu-
lated her to hear. — " The drama develops," she said to her-
self, half triumphant, half abashed. " And yet I am telling
the truth, it is all so — I hardly even doctor it." — For she had
been angered, genuinely and miserably angered, and had found
that odious to the point of letting feeling override diplomacy.
There was subtle pleasure in now turning her very lapse of
self-control to her own advantage. And then, this young
man's heart was the finest, purest-toned instrument upon
which she had ever had the chance to play as yet. She was
ravished by the quality and range of the music it gave forth.
Madame de Vallorbes pressed her hands together within the
warm comfort of her sable muff, averted her face again, lest
it should betray the eager excitement that gained on her, and
continued : —

" Yes, whip and rein and bit are hardly pretty in that con-
nection, are they ? If you would willingly give your identity
the slip at times, dear cousin, I have considerably deeper cause
to wish to part company with mine ! You, in any case, are
morally and materially free. A whole class of particularly
irritating and base cares can never approach you. And it was
in connection with just such cares that I spoke of the hate-
fulness of return journeys."

Helen paused, as one making an effort to maintain her
equanimity.

" My letters recall me to Paris," she said, " where detest-
able scenes and most ignoble anxieties await me."

" How soon must you go ? "

" That is what I asked myself," she said, in the same
quiet, even voice. " I have not yet arrived at a decision, and

258 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

so I asked you to bring me out Dickie, this afternoon.*' — She
looked up at him, smiling, lovely and with a certain wistful
dignity, wholly coercive. " Can you understand that the
orderly serenity of your splendid house became a little op-
pressive ? It offered too glaring a contrast to my own state
of mind and outlook. I fancied my brain would be clearer,
my conclusions more just, here out of doors, face to face with
this half-savage nature."

" Ah, I know all that," Richard said. Had not the blank-
ness of the fog brought him help this very morning ? — " I
know it, but I wish you did not know it too."

" I know many things better not known," Helen replied.
Her conscience pricked her. She thanked her stars confession
had ceased with enlargement from the convent-school, and
was a thing of the past. ^' You see, I want to decide just
how long I dare stay — if you will keep me ? "

" We will keep you," Richard said.

''You are very charming to me, Dick," she exclaimed im-
pulsively, sincerely, again slightly abashed. " How long can
I stay, I wonder, without making matters worse in the
end, both for my father and for myself? I am young, after
all, and I suppose I am tough. The cuticle of the soul — if
souls can have a cuticle — like that of the body, thickens
under repeated blows. But my father is no longer young.
He is terribly sensitive where I am concerned. And he is
inevitably drawn into the v/hirlpool of my wretched affair
sooner or later. On his account I should be glad to defer the
return journey as long "

" But — but — I don't understand," Richard broke out, pity
and deep concern for her, a blind fury against a person, or
persons, unknown, getting the better of him. "Who on
earth has the power to plague you and make you miserable, or
your father either ? "

The young man's face vi^as white, his eyes full of pain, full
of a great love, burning down on her. As once, long ago,
Helen de Vallorbes could have danced and clapped her hands
in naughty glee. For her hunting had prospered above her
fondest hopes. She had much ado to stifle the laughter which
bubbled up in her pretty throat. She was in the humour to
pelt peacocks royally, had such pastime been possible. As it
was, she closed her eyes for a little minute and waited, biting

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 259

the inside of her lip. At last, she said slowly, almost
solemnly : —

" Don't you know that for certain mistakes, and those usu-
ally the most generous, there is no redress ? "

^' What do you mean ? " he demanded.

" Mean ? — the veriest commonplace in my own case," she
answered. " Merely an unhappy marriage. There are thou-
sands such."

They had left the shadow of the fir woods now. The car-
riage crossed the white-railed culvert — bridging the little
stream that takes its rise amid the pink and emerald mosses of
the peat-bog, and meanders down the valley — and entered the
oak plantation just inside the park gate. Russet leaves in
rustling, hurrying companies, fled up and away from the
rapidly turning wheels and quick horse hoofs. The sunshine
was wan and chill as the smile on a dead face. Lines of pale,
lilac cloud — shaped like those flights of cranes which decorate
the oriental cabinets of the Long Gallery — crossed the western
sky above the bare balsam poplars, the cluster of ancient half-
timbered cottages at the entrance to Sandyfield church lane,
and the rise of the gray-brown fallow beyond, where sheep
moved, bleating plaintively, within a wattled fold.

The scene, altogether familiar though it was, impressed
itself on Richard's mind just now, as one of paralysing mel-
ancholy. God help us, what a stricken, famished world it is !
Will you not always find sorrow and misfortune seated at the
root of things if, disregarding overlaying prettiness of summer
days, of green leaf and gay blossom, you dare draw near, dig
deep, look close ? And can nothing, no one, escape the
blighting touch of that canker stationed at the very foundations
of being ? Certainly it would seem not — Richard reasoned —
listening to the words of the radiant woman beside him, or-
dained, in right of her talent and puissant grace, to be a queen
and idol of men. For sadder than the thin sunshine, bare
trees and complaint of the hungry flock, was that assured dec-
laration that loveless and unlovely marriages — of which her
own was one — exist by the thousand, are, indeed, the veriest
commonplace !

These reflections held Richard, since he had been thinker
and poet — in his degree — since childhood ; lover onlv during
the brief space of these last ten surprising days. Thus the

3t6o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

general application claimed his attention first. But hard on
the heels of this followed the personal application. For, as is
the way of all true lovers, the universality of the law under
which it takes its rise mitigates, by most uncommonly little^
either the joy or sorrow of the particular case. Poignant re-
gret that she suffered, strong admiration that she bore suffering
so adherent with such lightness of demeanour — then, more
dangerous than these, a sense of added unlooked-for nearness
*to her, and a resultant calling not merely of the spirit of youth
*in hi<m to that same spirit resident in her, but the deeper, more
'<:ompeiling, more sonorous call from the knowledge of tragedy
an him to that same terrible knowledge now first made evident
in her. — And here Richard's heart — in spite of pity, in spite
of tenderness which would have borne a hundred miseries to
save her five minutes' discomfort — sang Te Deu?7i^ and that
lustily enough ] For by this revelation of the infelicity of her
state, his whole relation to, and duty towards her changed and
took on a greater freedom. To pour forth worship and offers
of service at the feet of a happy woman is at once an imperti-
nence to her and a shame to yourself. But to pour forth such
worship, such offers of service, at the feet of an unhappy
woman — age-old sophistry, so often ruling the speech and
actions of men to their fatal undoing ! — this is praiseworthy
and legitimate, a matter not of privilege merely, but of obliga-
tion to whoso would claim to be truly chivalrous.

The perception of his larger liberty, and the consequences
following thereon, kept Richard silent till Sandyfield rectory,
the squat-towered, Georgian church and the black-headed,
yew trees in the close-packed churchyard adjoining, the neigh-
bouring farm and its goodly show of golden-gray wheat-ricks
wer'e left behind, and the carriage entered on the flat, furze-
dotted expanse of Sandyfield common. Flocks of geese, aris-
ing from damp repose upon the ragged autumn turf, hissed
forth futile declarations of war. A gipsy caravan painted in
staring colours, and hung all over with heath-brooms and
basket-chairs, caused the horses to swerve. Parties of home-
:going school-children backed on to the loose gravel at the
'foadside, bobbing curtsies or pulling forelocks, staring at the
^oung man and his companion, curious and half afraid. For
5n the youthful, bucolic mind a mystery surrounded Richard
'Calmady and his goings and comings, causing him to rank

LA BELLE DAiME SANS MERCI 261

with crowned heads, ghosts, the Book of Daniel, funerals,
the Northern Lights, and kindred matters of dread fascination.
So wondering eyes pursued him down the road.

And wondering eyes, as the minutes passed, glanced up at
him from beneath the sweeping plumes and becoming shadow
of the cavalier's hat. For his prolonged silence rendered
Madame de Vallorbes anxious. Had she spoken unadvisedljp
with her tongue ? Had her words sounded crude and of ques-
tionable delicacy ? Given his antecedents and upbringings
Richard was bound to hold the marriage tie in rather supersti-
tious reverence, and was likely to entertain slightly superannu-
ated views regarding the obligation of reticence in the discus-
sion of family matters. She feared she had reckoned insuffi-
ciently with all this in her eagerness, forgetting subtle diplo-
macies. Her approach had lacked tact 2indi finesse. In deal-
ing with an adversary of coarser fibre her attack would have
succeeded to admiration. But this man was refined and sensi-
tive to a fault, easily disgusted, narrowly critical in questions,
of taste.

Therefore she glanced up at him again, trying to divine his
thought, her own mind in a tumult of opposing purposes and
desires. And just as the contemplation of her beauty had so
deeply stirred him earlier this same afternoon, so did the con-
templation of his beauty now stir her. It satisfied her artistic
sense. Save that the nose was straighter and shorter, the
young man reminded her notably of a certain antique, terra-
cotta head of the young Alexander which she had once seerj
in a museum at Munich, and which had left an ineffaceable
impression upon her memory. But, the face of the young
Alexander beside her was of nobler moral quality than that
other — undebauched by feasts and licentious pleasures as yet,
masculine yet temperate, the sanctuary of generous ambitions
— merciless it might be, she fancied, but never base, never
weak. Thus was her artistic sense satisfied, morally as well as
physically. Her social sense was satisfied also. For the young
man's high-breeding could not be called in question. He held
himself remarkably well. She approved the cut of his clothes
moreover, his sure and easy handling of the spirited horses.

And then her eyes, following down the lines of the fur rug^
received renewed assurance of the fact of his deformity —
hidden as far as might be, with decent pride, yet there, perma-

262 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ncnt and unalterable. This worked upon her strongly. For,
to her peculiar temperament, the indissoluble union in one
body of elements so noble and so monstrous, of youthful
vigour and abject helplessness, the grotesque in short, supplied
the last v/ord of sensuous and dramatic attraction. As last
evening, in the Long Gallery, so now, she hugged herself, at
once frightened and fascinated, wrought upon by excitement
as in the presence of something akin to the supernatural, and
altogether beyond the confines of ordinary experience.

And to think that she had come so near holding this inimi-
table creature in her hand, and by overhastc, or clumsiness of
statement should lose it ! Madame de Vallorbes was wild
with irritation, racked her brain for means to recover her — as
she feared — forfeited position. It would be maddening did
her mighty hunting prove but a barren pastime in the end.
And thereupon the little scar on her temple, deftly concealed
under the soft, bright hair, began to smart and throb. Ah !
well, the hunting should not prove quite barren anyhow, of
that she was determined, for, failing her late gay purpose, that
small matter of long-deferred revenge still remained in reserve.
If she could not gratify one passion, she would gratify quite
another. For in this fair lady's mind it was — perhaps un-
fortunately— but one step from the Eden bowers of love to the
waste places of vindictive hate. — '^ Yet I would rather be
good to him, far rather," she said to herself, with a movement
of quite pathetic sincerity.

But here, just at the entrance to the village street, an al-
together unconscious deus ex machlna — destined at once to
relieve Helen of further anxiety, and commit poor Dickie to a
course of action affecting the whole of his subsequent career —
presented itself in the shape of a white-tented miller's waggon,
which, with somnolent jingle of harness bells and most ad-
mired deliberation, moved down the centre of the road. A
yellow-washed garden-wall on one side, the brook on the
other, there was not room for the phaeton to pass.

" Whistle," Rjchard commanded over his shoulder. And
the wooden image thereby galvanised into immediate activity
whistled shrilly, but without result as far as the waggon was
concerned.

" The fellow's asleep. Go and tell him to pull out of the
way."

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 263

Then, while the groom ran neatly forward in twinkling,
white breeches and flesh-coloured tops, Richard, bending to-
wards her, as far as that controling strap about his waist per-
mitted, shifted the reins into his right hand and laid his left
upon Madame de Vallorbes' sable mufF.

" Look here, Helen," he said, rather hoarsely, " I am inde-
scribably shocked at what you have just told me. I supposed
it was all so different with you. I'd no suspicion of this.
And — and — if I may say so, you've taught me a lesson which
has gone home — steady there — steady, good lass " — for the
horses danced and snorted — " I don't think I shall ever grum-
ble much in future about troubles of my own, having seen
how splendidly you bear yours. Only I can't agree with you
no remedy is possible for generous mistakes. The world isn't
quite so badly made as all that. There is a remedy for every
mistake except — a few physical ones, which we euphuistically
describe as visitations of God. — Steady, steady there — wait a
bit. — And I — I tell you I can't sit down under this unhappi-
ness of yours and just put up with it. Don't think me a
meddling fool, please. Something's got to be done. I know
I probably appear to you the last person in the world to be of
use. And yet I'm not sure about that. I have time — too
much of it — and I'm not quite an ass. And you — you must
know, I think, there's nothing in heaven or earth I would not
do for you that I could "

The miller hauled his slow-moving team aside, with beery-
thick objurgations and apologies. The groom swung himself
up at the back of the carriage again. The impatient horses,
getting their heads, swung away down Sandyfield Street —
scattering a litter of merry, little, black pigs and remonstrant
fowls to right and left — past modest village shop, and yellow-
washed tavern, and red, lichen-stained cottage, beneath the
row of tall Lombardy poplars that raised their brown-gray
spires to the blue-gray of the autumn sky. Richard's left
hand held the reins again.

" Half confidences are no good," he said. " So, as you've
trusted me thus far, Helen, don't you think you will trust
somewhat further ? Be explicit. Tell me the rest ? "

And hearing him, seeing him just then, Madame de Val-
lorbes' heart melted within her, and, to her own prodigious
surprise, she had much ado not to weep.

a64 SIR RICH^RD CALM AD Y

CHAPTER IX

WHICH TOUCHES INCIDENTALLY ON MATTERS OF FINANCE

A S Richard had predicted the fog reappeared towards sun -
set. At first, as a frail mist, through which the land-
scape looked colourless and blurred. Later it rose, growing
in density, until all objects beyond a radius of some twenty
paces were engulfed in its nothingness and lost. Later still —
while Helen de Vallorbes paid her visit at Newlands — it grew
<lenser yet, heavy, torpid, close yet cold, penetrated by earthy
odours as the atmosphere of a vault, oppressive to the senses,
baffling to sight and hearing alike. From out it, half-leafless
branches, like gaunt arms in tattered draperies, seemed to claw
and beckon at the passing carriage and its occupants. The
silver mountings of the harness showed in points and splashes
of hard, shining white as against the shifting, universal dead-
whiteness of it, while the breath from the horses' nostrils rose
into it as defiant jets of steam, that struggled momentarily
with the opaque, all-enveloping vapour, only to be absorbed
and obliterated as light by darkness, or life by death.

The aspect presented by nature was sinister, had Richard
Calmady been sufficiently at leisure to observe it in detail.
But, as he slowly v/alked the horses up and down the quarter
of a mile of woodland drive, leading from the thatched lodge
on the right of the Westchurch road to the house, he was not
;at leisure. He had received enlightenment on many subjects.
»H.e had acquired startling impressions, and he needed to place
these, to bring them into line with the general habit of his
■thought. The majority of educated persons — so-called —
think in words, words often arbitrary and inaccurate enough,
prolific mothers of mental confusion. The minority, and
those of by no means contemptible intellectual calibre, — since
the symbol must count for more than the mere label, — think
in images and pictures. Dickie belonged to the minority.
And it must be conceded that his mind now projected against
that shifting, impalpable background of fog, a series of pictures
which in their cynical pathos, their suggestions at once volup-

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 265

tuous and degraded, were hardly unworthy of the great master,
William Hogarth, himself.

For Helen, in the reaction and relief caused by finding her
relation to Richard unimpaired, caused too by that joyous
devilry resident in her and constantly demanding an object on
which to wreak its derision, had by no means spared her lord
and master, Angelo Luigi Francesco, Vicomte de Vallorbes.
And this only son of a thrifty, hard-bitten, Savoyard banker-
noble and a Neopolitan princess of easy morals and ancient
lineage, this Parisian viveur^ his intrigues, his jealousies, his
practical ungodliness and underlying superstition, his outbursts
of temper, his shrewd economy in respect of others, and ex-
tensive personal extravagance, offered fit theme, with aid of
little romancing, for such a discourse as it just now suited his
very brilliant, young wife to pronounce.

The said discourse opened in a low key, broken by pauses,
by tactful self-accusations, by questionings as to whether it
were not more merciful, more loyal, to leave this or that un-
told. But as she proceeded, not only did Helen suffer the
seductions of the fine art of lying, but she really began to
have some ado to keep her exuberant sense of fun within due
limits. For it proved so excessively exhilarating to deal thus
with Angelo Luigi Francesco ! She had old scores to settle.
And had she not this very day received an odiously disquiet-
ing letter from him, in which he not only made renewed com-
plaint of her poor, little miseries of debts and flirtations, but
once more threatened retaliation by a cutting-ofF of supplies ?
In common justice did he not deserve villification ? Fhere-
fore, partly out of revenge, partly in self-justification, she
proceeded with increasing enthusiasm to show that to know
M. de Vallorbes was a lamentably liberal education in all
civilised iniquities. With a hand, sure as it was light, she
dissected out the unhappy gentleman, and offered up his
mangled and bleeding reputation as tribute to her own so-
perpetually outraged moral sense and feminine delicacy, not to
mention her so-repeatedly and vilely wounded heart. And
there really was truth — as at each fresh flight of her imagina-
tion she did not fail to remind herself — in all that which she
said. Truth ? — yes, just that misleading sufficiency of it in
which a lie thrives. For, as every artist " in this kind " is
aware, precisely as you would have the overgrowth of your

266 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

improvisation richly phenomenal and preposterous, must you
be careful to set the root of it in the honest soil of fact. To
omit this precaution is to court eventual detection and con-
sequent confusion of face.

As it was, Helen entered the house at Newlands, a house
singularly unused to psychological aberrations, in buoyant
spirits, mischief sitting in her discreetly downcast eyes, laughter
perplexing her lips. She had placed her cargo of provocation,
of resentment, to such excellent advantage ! She was, more-
over, slightly intoxicated by her own eloquence. She was at
peace with herself and all mankind, with de Vallorbes even
since his sins had afforded her so rare an opportunity. And
this occasioned her to congratulate herself on her own con-
spicuous magnanimity. It is so exceedingly pleasing not only
to know yourself clever, but to believe yourself good ! She
would be charming to these dear kind, rather dull people.
Not that Honoria was dull, but she had inconveniently austere
notions of honour and loyalty at moments. And then the
solitary drive home with Richard Calmady lay ahead, full of
possible drama, full of, well, heaven knew what ! Oh ! how
entrancing a pastime is life !

But to Richard, walking the snorting and impatient horses
slowly up and down the woodland drive in the blear and sight-
less fog, life appeared quite other than an entrancing pastime.
The pictures projected by his thought, and forming the medium
of it, caused him black indignation and revolt, desolated him,
too, with a paralysing disgust of his own disabilities. For
poor Dick had declined somewhat in the last few hours, it
must be owned, from the celestial altitudes he had reached be-
fore luncheon. Some part of his cousin's discourse had been
dangerously intimate in character, suggesting situations quite
other than platonic. To him there appeared a noble innocence
in her treatment of matters not usually spoken of. He had
listened with a certain reverent amazement. Only out of
purity of mind could such speech come. And yet an unde-
niable effect remained, and it was not altogether elevating.
Richard was no longer the young Sir Galahad of the noon-
tide of this eventful day. He was just simply a man — in a
sensible degree the animal man — loving a woman, hating that
other man to whom she was legally bound. Hating that other
man, not only because he was unworthy and failed to makfc.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 267

her happy, but because he stood in his — Richard's — way.
Hating the man all the more fiercely because, whatever the
uncomeliness of his moral constitution, he was physically very
far from uncomely. And so, along with nobler incitements
to hatred, went the fiend envy, which just now plucked at
poor Dickie's vitals as the vulture at those of the chained
Titan of old. Whereupon he fell into a meditation some-
what morbid. For, contemplating in pictured thought that
other man's bodily perfection, contemplating his property and
victim, — the fair modern Helen, who by her courage and her
trials exercised so potent a spell over his imagination, — Richard
loathed his own maimed body, maimed chances and opportu-
nities, as he had never loathed them before. How often since
his childhood had some casual circumstance or trivial accident
brought the fact of his misfortune home to him, causing him —
as he at the moment supposed — to reckon, once and for all,
with the sum total of it ! But as years passed and experience
widened, below each depth of this adhering misery another deep
disclosed itself. Would he never reach bottom ? Would
this inalienable disgrace continue to show itself more re-
stricting and impeding to his action, more repulsive and con-
temptible to his fellow-men, through all the succeeding stages
and vicissitudes of his career, right to the very close ?

To her hosts Madame de Vallorbes appeared in her gayest
and most engaging humour. It was only a Hying visit, she
mustn't stay, Richard was waiting for her. Only she felt she
must just have two words with Honoria. And say good-bye?
Yes, ten thousand sorrows, it was good-bye. She was recalled
to Paris, home, and duty. She made an expressive little
grimace at Miss St. Quentin.

"Your husband will be" — began Mrs. Cathcart, in her
large, gently anthoritative manner.

" Enchanted to see me, of course, dear Cousin Selina, or he
would not have required my return thus urgently. We may
take that for said. Meanwhile v/hat strange sprigs of nobility
flourish in the local soil here."

And she proceeded to give an account of the Fallowfeild
party at luncheon more witty, perhaps, than veracious. Helen
could be extremely entertaining on occasion. She gave reins
to her tongue, and it galloped away with her in most surpris-
ing fashion.

268 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" My dear, my dear," interrupted her hostess,
little unkind surely ! My dear, you are a little flippant! "

But Madame de Vallorbes enveloped her in the most as-
suaging embrace.

"Let me laugh while I c?.n, dearest Cousin Selina," she
pleaded. " I have had a delightful little holiday. Every one
has been charming to me. You, of course — but then you al-
ways are that. Your presence breathes consolation. But
Aunt Katherine has been charming too, and that, quite between
ourselves, was a little more than I anticipated. Now the
holiday draws to a close and pay-day looms large ahead. You
know nothing about such pay-days, thank heaven, dear Cousin
Selina. They are far from joyous inventions ; and so " — the
young lady spread abroad her hands, palms upward, and
shrugged her shoulders under their weight of costly furs —
^'and so I laugh, don't you understand, I laugh! "

Miss St. Quentin's delicate, square-cut face wore an air of
solicitude as she followed her friend out of the room. There
was a trace of indolence in her slow, reflective speech, as in
her long, swinging stride — the indolence bred of unconscious
strength rather than of weakness, the leisureliness which
goes with staying power both in the moral and the physical
domain.

" See here, Nellie," she said, " forgive brutal frankness, but
which is the real thing to-day — they're each delightful in their
own way — the tears or the laughter ? "

" Both ! oh, well-beloved seeker after truth," Madame de
Vallorbes answered. "There lies the value of the situation.'*

" Fresh worries ? "

" No, no, the old, the accustomed, the well-accredited, the
normal, the stock ones — a husband and a financial crisis."

As she spoke Madame de Vallorbes fastened the buttons of
her long driving-coat. Miss St. Quentin knelt down and
busied herself with the lowest of these. Her tall, slender
figure was doubled together. She kept her head bent.

" I happen to have a pretty tidy balance just now," she
remarked parenthetically, and as though with a certain diffi-
dence. "So you know, if you are a bit hard up — why — it's
all perfectly simple, Nellie, don't you know."

For a perceptible space of time Madame de Vallorbes did
not answer. A grating of wheels on the gravel arrested her

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 269

attention. She looked down the long vista of ruddily lighted
hall, with its glowing fire and cheerful lamps to the open door,
where, against the blear whiteness of the fog, the mail-phaeton
and its occupant showed vague, in outline and in proportions
almost gigantic against the thick, shifting atmosphere. Miss
St. Quentin raised her head, surprised at her companion's
silence. Helen de Vallorbes bent down, took the upturned
face in both hands and kissed the soft cheeks with effusion.

''You are adorable," she said. '' But you are too generous.
You shall lend me nothing more. I believe I see my way. I
can scrape through this crisis."

Miss St. Quentin rose to her feet.

"All right," she said, smiling upon her friend from her
superior height with a delightful air of affection and apology.
"" I only wanted you just to know, in case — don't you see.
And — and — for the rest, how goes it Helen ? Are you turn-
ing all their poor heads at Brockhurst ? You're rather an upset-
ting being to let loose in an ordinary, respectable, English
country-house. A sort of Mousquetaire au convent the other
way about, don't you knov;^. Are you making things fly
generally ? "

" I am making nothing fly," the other lady rejoined gaily.
*' I am as inoffensive as a stained-glass saint in a chapel
window. I am absolutely angelic."

" That's worst of all," Honoria exclaimed, still smiling.
*' When you're angelic you are most particularly deadly. For
the preservation of local innocents, somebody ought to go and
hoist danger signals."

Miss St. Quentin, after just a moment's hesitation, followed
her friend through the warm, bright hall to the door. Then
Helen de Vallorbes turned to her.

" y/« r^z;^/>, dearest Honoria," she said, "and the sooner
the better. Leave your shopgirls and distressed needlewomen,
and all your other good works for a still better one — namely
for me. Come and reclaim, and comfort, and support me for
a while In Paris."

Again she kissed the soft cheek.

" I am as good as gold. I am just now actually mawkish
r ith virtue," she murmured, between the kisses.

Richard witnessed this exceedingly pretty leave-taking not
without a movement of impatience. The fog was thickening:

270 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

once more. It grew late. He wished his cousin would get
through with these amenities. Then, moreover, he did not
covet intercourse with Miss St. Quentin. He pulled the fur
rug aside with his left hand, holding reins and whip in his
right.

" I say, are you nearly ready ? " he asked. " I don't want
to bother you ; but really it's about time we were moving."

" I come, I come," Madame de Vallorbes cried, in answer.
She put one neatly-shod foot on the axle, and stepped up—
Richard holding out his hand to steady her. A sense, at once
pleasurable and defiant, of something akin to ownership^
came over him as he did so. Just then his attention was
claimed by a voice addressing him from the further side of the
carriage. Honoria St. Quentin stood on the gravel close be-
side him, bare-headed, in the clinging damp and chill of the
fog.

"Give my love to Lady Calmady," she said. "I hope I
shall see her again some day. But, even if I never have the
luck to do that, in a way it'll make no real difference. I've
written her name in my private calendar, and shall always
remember it." — She paused a moment. " We got rather
near each other somehow, I think. We didn't dawdle or
beat about the bush, but went straight along, passed the
initial stages of acquaintance in a few hours, and reached that
point of friendship where forgetting becomes impossible.

"My mother never forgets," Richard asserted, and there
was, perhaps, a slight edge to his tone. Looking down into
the girl's pale, finely-moulded face, meeting the glance of
those steady, strangely clear and observant eyes, he received
an impression of something uncompromisingly sincere and in
a measure protective. This, for cause unknown, he resented.
Notwithstanding her high breeding, Miss St. Quentin's attitude
appeared to him a trifle intrusive just then.

" I am very sure of that — that your mother never forgets, I
mean. One knows, at once, one can trust her down to the
ground and on to the end of the ages." — Again she paused, as
though rallying herself against a disinclination for further
speech. " All captivating women aren't made on that pattern^
unfortunately, you know. Sir Richard. A good many of them
it's wisest not to trust anything like down to the ground, or
longer than — well — the day before yesterday."

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 271

And without waiting for any reply to this cryptic utterance,
she stepped swiftly round behind the carriage again, waved her
hand from the door-step and then swung away, with lazy, long-
limbed grace, past the waiting men-servants and through to the
ruddy brightness of the hall.

Madame de Vallorbes settled herself back rather languidly
In her place. She was pricked by a sharp point of curiosity,
regarding the tenor of Miss St. Quentin's mysterious colloquy
with Richard Calmady. She had been able to catch but a
word here and there, and these had been provokingly suggestive.
Had the well-beloved Honoria, in a moment of overscrupulous
conscientiousness permitted herself to hoist danger signals ?
She wanted to know, for it was her business to haul such
down again with all possible despatch. She intended the
barometer to register set fair whatever the weather actually
impending. Yet to institute direct inquiries might be to
invite suspicion. Helen, therefore, declined upon diplomacy,
upon the inverted sweetnesses calculated nicely to mask an in-
tention quite other than sweet. She really held her friend in
very warm affection. But Madame de Vallorbes never con-
fused secondary and primary issues. When you have a really
big deal on hand — and of the bigness of her present deal the
last quarter of an hour had brought her notably increased
assurance — even the dearest friend must stand clear and get
very decidedly out of the way. So, while the muffled thud of
the horses' hoofs echoed up from the hard gravel of the car-
riage drive through the thick atmosphere, and the bare limbs
of the trees clawed, as with lean arms clothed in tattered
draperies, at the passing carriage and its occupants, she con-
tented herself by observing : —

" I am grateful to you for driving me over, Richard.
Honoria is very perfect in her own way. It always does mc
good to see her. She's quite unlike anybody else, isn't she ? "

But Richard's eyes were fixed upon the blank wall of fog
just ahead, which, though always stable, always receded before
the advancing carriage. The effect of it was unpleasant some-
how, holding, as it did to his mind, suggestions of other things
still more baffling and impending, from which — though you
might keep them at arm's length — there was no permanent
or actual escape. The question of Miss St. Quentin's char-
acteristics did not consequenrV greatly interest him. He had

272 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

arrived at conclusions. There was a matter of vital im-
portance on which he desired to speak to his cousin. But
how to do that ? Richard was young and excellently modest..
His whole purpose was rather fiercely focused on speech.
But he was diffident, fearing to approach the subject which
he had so much at heart clumsily and in a tactless, tasteless
manner.

" Miss St. Quentin ? Oh yes ! " he replied, rather ab-
sently. " I really know next to nothing about her. And she
seems merely to regard me as a vehicle of communication be-
tween herself and my mother. She sent her messages just now
— I hope to goodness I shan't forget to deliver them ! She
and my mother appear to have fallen pretty considerably in
love with one another."

" Probably," Madame de Vallorbes said softly. An agree-
able glow of relief passed over her. She looked up at Richard
with a delightful effect of pensiveness from beneath the sweep-
ing brim of her cavalier hat. — " I can well believe Aunt
Katherine would be attracted by her," she continued.
" Honoria is quite a woman's woman. Men do not care very^
much about her as a rule. There is a good deal of latent
vanity resident in the members of your sex, you know,
Richard ; and men are usually conscious that Honoria does not
care so very much about them. They are quite right, she
does not. I really believe when poor, dreadful, old Lady
Tombermory left her all that money Honoria's first thought
was that now she might embrace celibacy with a good con-
science. The St. Quentins are not precisely millionaires,
you know. Her wealth left her free to espouse the cause of
womanhood at large. She is a little bit Quixotic, dear thing,
and given to tilting at windmills. She wants to secure ta
working women a fair business basis — that is the technical
expression, I believe. And so she starts clubs, and forms
circles. She says women must be encouraged to combine and
to agitate. Whether they are capable of combining I do not
pretend to say. These high matters transcend my small wit.
But, as I have often pointed out to her, agitation is the
natural attitude of every woman. It would seem superfluous to
encourage or inculcate that, for surely wherever two or three
petticoats are gathered together, there, as far as my experience-
goes, is agitation of necessity in the midst of them."

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 273

Madame de Vallorbes leaned back with a little sigh and air
of exquisite resignation.

''All the same, the majority of women are unhappy enough,
heaven knows ! If Honoria, or any other sweet, feminine
Quixote, can find means to lighten the burden of our lives, she
has my very sincere thanks, well understood."

Richard drew his whip across the backs of the trotting
horses, making them plunge forward against that blank, im-
palpable wall of all-encircling, ever-receding, ever-present fog.
The carriage had just crossed the long, white-railed bridge,
spanning the little river and space of marsh on either side, and
now entered Sandyfield Street. The tops of the tall Lom-
bardy poplars were lost in gloom. Now and again the redness
of a lighted cottage window, blurred and contorted in shape,
showed through the gray pall. Slow-moving, country figures,
passing vehicles, a herd of some eight or ten cows — preceded
by a diabolic looking billy-goat, and followed by a lad astride
the hind-quarters of a bare-backed donkey — grew out of pallid
nothingness as the carriage came abreast of them, and receded
with mysterious rapidity into nothingness again. The eff'ect
was curiously fantastic and unreal. And as the minutes
passed that effect of unreality gained upon Richard's imagina-
tion, until now — as last evening in the stately solitude of the Long
Gallery — he became increasingly aware of the personality of
his companion, increasingly penetrated by the feeling of being
alone with that personality, as though the world, so strangely
blotted out by these dim, obliterating vapours, were indeed
vacant of all human interest, human purpose, human history,
save that incarnate in this fair woman and his own relation to
her. She alone existed, concrete, exquisite, sentient, amid the
vague, shifting immensities of fog. She alone mattered.
Her near neighbourhood worked upon him strongly, causing
an excitement in him which at once hindered and demanded
speech.

Night began to close in in good earnest. Passing the
broad, yellowish glare streaming out from the rounded tap-
room window of the Calmady Arms, and passing from the end
of the village street on to the open common, the light had be-
come so uncertain that Richard could no longer see his com-
panion's face clearly. This was almost a relief to him, so that,
mastering at once his diffidence and his excitement, he spoke.

274 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Look here, Helen/* he said, " I have been thinking over
all that you told me. I don't want to dwell on subjects that
must be very painful to you, but I can't help thinking about
them. It's not that I won't leave them alone, but that they
won't leave me. I don't want to presume upon your con-
fidence, or take too much upon myself. Only, don't you see,
now that I do know it's impossible to sit down under it all and
let things go on just the same. — You're not angry with me ? "

The young man spoke very carefully and calmly, yet the
tones of his voice were heavily charged with feeling.

Madame de Vallorbes clasped her hands rather tightly
within her sable mufF. Unconsciously she began to sway a
little, just a very little, as a person will sway in time to strains
of stirring music. An excitement, not mental merely but
physical, invaded her. For she recognised that she stood on
the threshold of developments in this very notable drama.
Still she answered quietly, with a touch even of weariness.

" Ah ! dear Richard, it is so friendly and charming of you
to take my infelicities thus to heart ! But to what end, to
what end, I ask you ? The conditions are fixed. Escape
from them is impossible. I have made my bed — made it
most abominably uncomfortably, I admit, but that is not to
the point — and I must lie on it. There is no redress. There
is nothing to be done."

" Yes, there is this," he replied. "I know it is wretchedly
inadequate, it doesn't touch the root of the matter. Oh ! it's
miserably inadequate — I should think I did know that ! Only
it might smooth the surface a bit, perhaps, and put a stop to
one source of annoyance. Forgive me if I say what seems
coarse or clumsy — but would not your position be easier if, in
regard to — to money, you were quite independent of that — of
your husband, I mean — M. de Vallorbes ? "

For a moment the young lady remained very still, and
stared very hard at the fog. The most surprising visions
arose before her. She had a difficulty in repressing an ex-
clamation.

"Ah! there now, I have blundered. I've hurt you. I've
made you angry," Dickie cried impulsively.

" No, no, dear Richard," she answered, with admirable
gentleness, "I am not angry. Only what is the use of
romancing ? "

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 275

" I am not romancing. It is the simplest thing out, if you
will but have it so."

He hesitated a little. The horses were pulling, the fog
was in his throat thick and choking — or was it, perhaps,
something more unsubstantial and intangible even than fog ?
The spacious barns and rickyards of the Church Farm were
just visible on the right. In less than five minutes more, at
their present pace, the horses would reach the first park gate.
The young man felt he must give himself time. He quieted
the horses down into a walk.

"If I were your brother, Helen, I should save you all
these sordid money worries as a matter of course. You have
no brother — so, don't you see, I come next. It's a perfectly
obvious arrangement. Just let me be your banker," he said.

Adadame de Vallorbes shut her pretty teeth together. She
could have danced, she could have sung aloud for very gaiety
of heart. She had not anticipated this turn to the situation ;
but it was a delicious one. It had great practical merits.
Her brain worked rapidly. Immediately those practical merits
ranged themselves before her in detail. But she would play
with it a little — both diplomacy and good taste, in which last
she was by no means deficient, required that.

" Ah ! you forget, dear Richard," she said, " in your
friendly zeal you forget that, in our rank of life, there is one
thing a woman cannot accept from a man. To take money
is to lay yourself open to slanderous tongues, is to court
scandal. Sooner or later it is known, the fact leaks out.
And however innocent the intention, however noble and
honest the giving, however grateful and honest the receiving,
the world puts but one construction upon such a transaction."

" The world's beastly evil-minded then," Richard said.

" So it is. But that is no news, Dickie dear," Madame de
Vallorbes answered. " Nor is it exactly to the point."

Inwardly she trembled a little. What if she had headed
him off too cleverly, and he should regard her argument as
convincing, her refusal as final ? Her fears were by no
means lessened by the young man's protracted silence.

" No, I don't agree," he said at last. " I suppose there are
always risks to be run m securing anything at all worth secur-
ing, and it seems to me, if you look at it all round, the risks
in this case are very slight. Only you — and M. de Vallorbes

276 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

need know. I suppose he must. But then, if you wiil
pardon my saying so, after what you have told me I can't
imagine he is the sort of person who is likely to object very
much to an arrangement by which he would benefit, at least
indirectly. As for the world," — Richard ceased to contem-
plate his horses. He tried to speak lightly, while his eyes
sought that dimly seen face at his elbow. " Oh, well, hang
the world, Helen ! It's easy enough for me to say so, I dare
say, being but so slightly acquainted with it and the ways of
it. But the world can't be so wholly hide-bound and idiotic
that it denies the existence of exceptional cases. And this
case, in some of its bearings at all events, is wholly excep-
tional, I am — happy to think."

"You are a very convincing special pleader, Richard,'*
Madame de Vallorbes said softly.

" Then you accept ? " he rejoined exultantly. " You
accept ? "

The young lady could not quite control herself.

" Ah ! if you only knew the prodigious relief it would be,"
she exclaimed, with an outbreak of impatience. " It would
make an incalculable difference. And yet I do not see my
way. I am in a cleft stick. I dare not say Yes. And to say

No " Her sincerity was unimpeachable at that moment.

Her eyes actually filled with tears. " Pah ! I am ashamed
of myself," she cried, " but to refuse is distracting."

The gate of the outer park had been reached. The groom
swung himself down and ran forward, but confused by the
growing darkness and the thick atmosphere he fumbled for a
time before finding the heavy latch. The horses became
somewhat restive, snorting and fidgeting.

••' Steady there, steady, good lass," Richard said soothingly.
Then he turned again to his companion. " Believe me it's
the very easiest thing out to accept, if you'll only look at it all
from the right point of view, Helen."

Madame de Vallorbes withdrew her right hand from he" muff
and laid it, almost timidly, upon the young man's arm.

" Do you know, you are wonderfully dear to me, Dick ? '*
she said, and her voice shook slightly. She was genuinely
touched and moved. " No one has ever been quite so dear
to me before. It is a new experience. It takes my breath
away a little. It makes me regret some things I have done.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 277

But it Is a mistake to go back on what is past, don't you think
so ? Therefore we will go forward. Tell me, expound.
What is this so agreeably reconciling point of view? "

But along with the touch of her hand, a great wave of emo-
tion swept over poor Richard, making his grasp on th^ reins
very unsteady. The sensations he had suffered last evening
in the Long Gallery again assailed him. The flesh had its
word to say. Speech became difficult. Meanwhile his agita-
tion communicated itself strangely to the horses. They sprang
forward against that all-encircling, ever-present, yet ever-re-
ceding, blank wall of fog, to which the overarching trees lent
an added gloom and mystery, as though some incarnate terror
pursued them. The gate clanged-to behind the carriage. The
groom scrambled breathlessly into his place. Sir Richard's
driving was rather reckless, he ventured to think, on such a
nasty, dark night, and with a lady along of him too. He was
not sorry when the pace slowed down to a walk. That was a
long sight safer, to his thinking.

''The right point of view is this," Richard said at last;
*'that in accepting you would be doing that which, in some
ways, would make just all the difference to my life."

He held himself very upright on the sloping driving-seat,
rather cruelly conscious of the broad strap about his waist, and
the high, unsightly driving-Iron against which, concealed by
the heavy, fur rug, his feet pushed as he steadied himself. He
paused, gazing away into the silent desolation of the now in-
visible woods, and when he spoke again his voice had deepened
in tone.

" It must be patent to you — it is rather detestably patent to
every one, I suppose, if it comes to that — that I am condemned
to be of precious little use to myself or any one else. I share
the fate of the immortal Sancho Panza in his island of Bara-
tarla. A very fine feast is spread before me, while I find my-
self authoritatively forbidden to cat first of this dish and then
of that, until I end by being every bit as hungry as though the
table was bare. It becomes rather a nuisance at times, you
know, and taxes one's temper and one's philosophy. It seems
a little rough to possess all that so many men of my age would
give just anything to have, and yet be unable to get anything
but unsatisfied hunger, and — in plain English — humiliation,
out of it."

278 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Mada ne de Vallorbes sat very still. Her charming face
had grown keen. She listened, drawing in her breath with a
little sobbing sound — but that was only the result of accentu-
ated dramatic satisfaction.

" You see I have no special object o^ ambition. I can't
have one. I just pass the time. I don't see any prospect of
my ever being able to do more than that. There's my mother,
of course. I need not tell you she and I love one another.
And there are the horses. But I don't care to bet, and I
never attend a race-meeting. I — I do not choose to make an
exhibition of myself."

Again Helen drew her hand out of her muff, but this time
quickly, impulsively, and laid it on Richard's left hand which
held the reins. The young man's breath caught in his throat,
he leaned sideways towards her, her shoulder touching his
elbow, the trailing plumes of her hat — now limp from the
clinging moisture of the fog — for a moment brushing his
cheek.

" Helen," he said rapidly, " don't you understand it's in
your power to alter all this ? By accepting you would do in-
finitely more for me than I could ever dream of doing for you.
You'd give me something to think of and plan about. If
you'll only have whatever wretched money you need now, and
have more whenever you want it — if you'll let me feel, how-
ever rarely we meet, that you depend on me and trust me and
let me make things a trifle easier and smoother for you, you
will be doing such an act of charity as ^ew women have ever
done. Don't refuse, for pity's sake don't ! I don't want to
whine, but things were not precisely gay before your coming,
you know. Need it be added they promise to be less so than
ever after you are gone ? So listen to reason. Do as I ask
you. Let me be of use in the only way I can."

" Do you consider what you propose ? " Madame de
Vallorbes asked, slowly. "It is a good deal. It is dangerous.
With most men such a compact would be wholly inadmis-
sible."

Then poor Dickie lost himself. The strain of the last week
the young, headlong passion aroused in him, the misery of his
deformity, the accumulated bitterness and rebellion of years
arose and overflowed as a great flood. Pride went down be-
fore it, and reticence, and decencies of self-respect. Richard

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 279

turned and rent himself, without mercy and, for the moment,
without shame. He pelted himself with cruel words, with
scorn and self-contempt, while he laughed, and the sound of
that laughter wandered away weirdly through the chill density
of the fog, under the tall, shadowy firs of the great avenue,
over the sombre-heather, out into the veiled, crowded darkness
of the wide woods.

" But I am not as other men are," he answered. " I am a
creature by myself, a unique development as much outside the
normal social, as I am outside the normal physical law. I —
alone by myself — think of it! — abnormal, extraordinary!
You are safe enough with me, Helen. Safe to indulge and
humour me as you might a monkey or a parrot. All the
world will understand that ! Only my mother, and a few old
friends and old servants take me seriously. To every one else
I am an embarrassment, a more or less distressing curiosity."
— He met little Lady Constance Quale's ruminant stare again
in imagination, heard Lord Fallowfeild's blundering speech. —
"Remember our luncheon to-day. It was flattering, at
moments, wasn't it ? And so if I do queer things, things off
the conventional lines, who will be surprised ? No one, I tell
you, not even the most strait-laced or censorious. Allow me
at least the privileges of my disabilities. I am a dwarf — a
cripple. I shall never be otherwise. Had I lived a century
or two ago I should have made sport for you, and such as you,
as some rich man's professional fool. And so, if I overstep
the usual limits, who will comment on that ? Queer things,
crazy things, are in the part. What do I matter ? "

Richard laughed aloud.

'' At least I have this advantage, that in my case you can
do what you can do in the case of no other man. With me
you needn't be afraid. No one will think evil. With me —
yes, after all, there is a drop of comfort in it — with me, Helen,
you're safe enough."

28o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

CHAPTER X

MR. LUDOVIC QUAYLE AMONG THE PROPHETS

'TpHAT same luncheon party at Brockhurst, if not notably
■*' satisfactory to the hosts, afforded much subsequent food
for meditation to one at least of the guests. During the even-
ing immediately following it, and even in the watches of the
night, Lady Louisa Barking's thought was persistently en-
gaged with the subject of Richard Calmady, his looks, his
character, his temper, his rent-roll, the acreage of his estates,
and his prospects generally. Nor did her interest remain
hidden and inarticulate. For, finding that in various particu-
lars her knowledge was superficial and clearly insufficient, on
her journey from Westchurch up to town next day, in com-
pany with her brother Ludovic, she put so many questions to
that accomplished young gentleman that he shortly divined
some serious purpose in her inquiry.

" We all recognise, my dear Louisa," he remarked pres-
ently, laying aside the day's Times, of which he had vainly
essayed the study, with an air of gentle resignation, crossing
his long legs and leaning back in his corner of the railway
carriage, " that you are the possessor of an eminently practical
mind. You have run the family for some years now, not
without numerous successes, among which may be reckoned
your running of yourself into the arms — if you will pardon my
mentioning them — of my estimable brother-in-law, Barking."

" Really, Ludovic ! " his sister protested.

" Let me entreat you not to turn restive, Louisa," Mr.
Quayle rejoined with the utmost suavity. " I am paying a
high compliment to your intelligence. To have run into the
arms of R4r. Barking, or indeed of anybody else, casually and
involuntarily, to have blundered into them — if I may so ex-
press myself — would have been a stupidity. But to run into
them intentionally and voluntarily argues considerable powers
of strategy, an intelligent direction of movement which I
respect and admire."

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 281

u

I

You are really exceedingly provoking, Ludovic ! *'

Lady Louisa pushed the square, leather-covered dressing-
case, on v^hich her feet had been resting, impatiently aside.

" Far from it,'* the young man answered. " Can I put that
box anywhere else for you ? You like it just where it is? —
Yes ? But I assure you I am not provoking. 1 am merely
complimentary. Conversation is an art, Louisa. None of
my sisters ever can be got to understand that. It is dreadfully
crude to rush in waist-deep at once. There should be feints
and approaches. You should nibble at your sugar with a
graceful coyness. You should cut a few frills and skirmish a
little before setting the battle actively in array. And it is just
this that I have been striving to do during the last five minutes.
But you do not appear to appreciate the commendable style of
my preliminaries. You want to engage immediately. There
is usually a first-rate underlying reason for your interest in
anybody "

Again the lady shifted the position of the dressing-case.

"To the right ? " inquired Mr. Quayle extending his handy
his head a little on one side, his long neck directed forward,
while he regarded first his sister and then the dressing-case
with infuriating urbanity. " No ? Let us come to Hecuba^
then. Let us dissemble no longer, but put it plainly. What,
oh, Louisa ! what are you driving at in respect of my very
dear friend, Dickie Calmady ? "

Now it was unquestionably most desirable for her to keep
on the fair-weather side of Mr. Quayle just then. Yet the flesh
is weak. Lady Louisa Barking could not control a movement
of self-justification. She spoke with dignity, severely.

'' It is all very well for you to say those sort of things^
Ludovic "

" What sort of things ? " he inquired mildly.

" But I should be glad to know what would have become of
the family by now, unless some one had come forward and
taken matters in hand ? Of course one gets no thanks for it.
One never does get any thanks for doing one's duty, however
wearing it is to oneself and however much others profit. But
somebody had to sacrifice themselves. Mama is unequal to
any exertion. You know what papa is "

"I do, I do," murmured Mr. Quayle, raising his gaze
piously to the roof of the railway carriage.

282 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" If he has one of the boys to tramp over the country with
him at Whitney, and one of the girls to ride with him in Lon-
don, he is perfectly happy and content. He is alarmingly im-
provident. He would prefer keeping the whole family at
home doing nothing "

" Save laughing at his jokes. My father craves the support
of a sympathetic audience."

" Shotover is worse than useless."

" Except to the guileless Israelite he is. Absolutely true,
Louisa."

" Guy would never have gone into the army when he left
Eton unless I had insisted upon it. And it was entirely
through the Barkings' influence — at my representation of
course — that Eddie got a berth in that Liverpool cotton-
broker's business. I am sure Alicia is very comfortably mar-
ried. I know George Winterbotham is not the least inter-
esting, but he is perfectly gentlemanlike and presentable, and
so on, and he makes her a most devoted husband. And from
what Mr. Barking heard the other day at the Club from some-
body or other, I forget who, but some one connected with the
Government, you know, there is every probability of George
getting that permanent under-secretaryship."

" Did I not start by declaring you had achieved numerous
successes ? " Ludovic inquired. " Yet we stray from the
point, Louisa. For do I not still remain ignorant of the root
of your sudden interest in my friend Dickie Calmady ? And
I thirst to learn how you propose to work him into the trium-
phant development of our family fortunes."

The proportions of Lady Louisa's small mouth contracted
still further into an expression of great decision, while she
glanced at the landscape reeling away from the window of the
railway carriage. In the past twelve hours autumn had given
place to winter. The bare hedges showed black, while the
fallen leaves of the hedgerow trees formed unsightly blotches
of sodden brown and purple upon the dirty green of the pas-
tures. Over all brooded an opaque, gray-brown sky, sullen
and impenetrable. Lady Louisa saw all this. But she was
one of those persons happily, for themselves, unaffected by
such abstractions as the aspects of nature. Her purposes were
immediate and practical. She followed them with praise-
worthy persistence. The landscape merely engaged her eyes

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 283:

because she preferred, just now, looking out of the window
to looking her brother in the face.

"Something must be done for the younger girls," she an-
nounced. ^^ I feel pretty confident about Emily's future.
We need not go into that. Maggie, if she marries at all —
and she really is very useful at home, in looking after the
servants and entertaining, and so on — if she marries at all,
will marry late. She has no particular attractions as girls go. L
Her figure is too solid, and she talks too much. But she will
make a very presentable middle-aged woman — sensible, de-
pendable, an excellent menagere. Certainly she had better
marry late."

"A mature clergyman when she is rising forty — a widowed
bishop, for instance. Yes, I approve that," Mr. Quayle re-
joined reflectively. " It is well conceived, Louisa. We:
must keep an eye on the Bench and carefully note any episco—
pal matrimonial vacancy. Bishops have a little turn, I ob-
serve, for marrying somebody who is somebody — specially en
secondes noces^ good men. Yes, it is well thought of. With
careful steering we may bring Maggie to anchor in a palace
yet. Maggie is rather dogmatic, she would make not half a.
bad Mrs. Proudie. So she is disposed of, and then ? "

For a few seconds the lady held silent converse with herself.
At last she addressed her companion in tones of unwonted
cordiality.

"You are by far the most sensible of the family, Ludovic,"
she began.

" And in a family so renowned for intellect, so conspicuous
for 'parts and learning,' as Macaulay puts it, that is indeed a
distinction ! " — Mr. Quayle bowed slightly in his comfortable
corner. " A thousand thanks, Louisa," he murmured.

" I would not breathe a syllable of this to any of the others,"
she continued. " You know how the girls chatter. Alicia, I
am sorry to say, is as bad as any of them. They would dis-
cuss the question without intermission — simply, you know,
talk the whole thing to death."

" Poor thing ! — Yet, after all, what thing ? " the young
man inquired urbanely.

Lady Louisa bit her lip. He was very irritating, while she
was very much in earnest. It was her misfortune usually to
be a good deal in earnest.

284 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"There is Constance,'* she remarked, somewhat abruptly.

" Precisely — there is poor, dear, innocent, rather foolish,
little Connie. It occurred to me wc might be coming to
that."

In his turn Mr. Quayle fell silent, and contemplated the
reeling landscape. Pasture had given place to wide stretches
of dark moorland on either side the railway line, with a pallor
of sour bog-grasses in the hollows. The outlook was un-
cheerful. Perhaps it was that which caused the young man
to shake his head.

" I recognize the brilliancy of the conception, Louisa. It
reflects credit upon your imagination and — your daring," he
said presently. " But you won't be able to work it."

" Pray why not ? " almost snapped Lady Louisa.

Mr. Quayle settled himself back in his corner again. His
handsome face was all sweetness, indulgent though argumenta-
tive. He was nothing, clearly, unless reasonable.

" Personally, I am extremely fond of Dickie Calmady," he
began. "I permit myself — honestly I do — moments of en-
thusiasm regarding him. I should esteem the woman lucky
who married him. Yet I could imagine a prejudice might
exist in some minds — minds of a less emancipated and finely
comprehensive order than yours and my own of course —
against such an alliance. Take my father's mind, for instance
— and unhappily my father dotes on Connie. And he is more
obstinate than nineteen dozen — well, I leave you to fill in the
comparison mentally, Louisa. It might be slightly wanting in
filial respect to put it into words."

Again he shook his head in pensive solemnity.

" I give you credit for prodigious push and tenacity, for a
remarkable capacity of generalship, in short. Yet I cannot
disguise from myself the certainty that you would never square
my father."

^^ But suppose she wishes it herself. Papa would deny Con-
nie nothing," the other objected. She was obliged to raise
her voice to a point of shrillness, hardly compatible with the
dignity of the noble house of P'allowfeild, double with all the
gold of all the Barkings, for the train was banging over the
jpoints and roaring between the platforms of a local junction.
•Mr. Quayle jmade a deprecating gesture, put his hands over
his cars, and again gently shook his head, intimating: that no

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 285

person possessed either of nerves or self-respect could be ex-
pected to carry on a conversation under existing conditions*
Lady Louisa desisted. But, as soon as the train passed into
the comparative quiet of the open country, she took up her
parable again, and took it up in a tone of authority.

" Of course I admit there is something to get over. It
would be ridiculous not to admit that. And I am alw^ays de-
termined to be perfectly straightforward. I detest humbug of
any kind. So I do not deny for a moment that there is some-
thing. Still it would be a very good marriage for Constance^
a very good marriage, indeed. Even papa must acknowledge
that. Money, position, age, everything of that kind, in its
favour. One could not expect to have all that without some
make-weight. I should not regret it, for I feel it might really
be bad for Connie to have so much without some make-weight.
And I remarked yesterday — I could not help remarking it —
that she was very much occupied about Sir Richard Calmady.""

" Connie is a little goose," Mr. Quayle permitted himself
to remark, and for once there was quite a sour edge to his
sweetness.

" Connie is not quick, she is not sensitive," his sister con-
tinued. " And, really, under all the circumstances, that per-
haps is just as well. But she is a good child, and would be-
lieve almost anything you told her. She has an affectionate
and obedient disposition, and she never attempts to think for
herself. I don't believe it would ever occur to her to object
to his — his peculiarities, unless some mischievous person sug-
gested it to her. And then, as I tell you, I remarked she was
very much occupied about him."

Once again Mr. Quayle sought counsel of the landscape
which once again had changed in character. For here civili-
sation began to trail her skirts very visibly, and the edges of
those skirts were torn and frayed, notably unhandsome. The
open moorland had given place to flat market-gardens and
leafless orchards sloppy with wet. Innumerable cabbages, in-
numerable stunted, black-branched apple and pear trees, ave-
nues of dilapidated pea and bean sticks, reeled away to right
and left. The semi-suburban towns stretched forth long, rawly-
red arms of ugly, little, jcrry-buiit streets and terraces. Tall
chimneys and unlovely gasometers — these last showing as col-
lections of some monstrous spawn — rose against the opaque

286 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

sky, a sky rendered momentarily more opaque, dirtier and more
dingy, by the masses of London smoke hanging along the east-
ern horizon.

Usually Ludovic knew his own mind clearly enough. The
atmosphere of it was very far from being hazy. Now that at-
mosphere bore annoying resemblance to the opacity obtaining
overhead and along the eastern horizon. The young man's
sympathies — or were they his prejudices ? — had a convenient
habit of ranging themselves immediately on one side or other
of any question presenting itself to him. But in the present
case they were mixed. They pulled both ways, and this
vexed him. For he liked to suppose himself very ripe, cyn-
ical, and disillusioned, while, in good truth, sentiment had
niore than a word to say in most of his opinions and decisions.
Now sentiment ruled him strongly and pushed him — but, un-
fortunately, in diametrically opposite directions. The senti-
ment of friendship compelled him hitherward. While another
sentiment, which he refused to define — he recognised it as
wholesome, yet he was a trifle ashamed of it — compelled him
quite other-where. He took refuge in an adroit begging of
the question.

" After all are you not committing the fundamental error of
reckoning without your host, Louisa ? '* he inquired. " Con-
nie may be a good deal occupied about Calmady, but thereby
may only give further proof of her own silliness. I certainly
<iiscovered no particular sign of Calmady being occupied about
Connie. He was very much more occupied about the fair
cousin, Helen de Vallorbes, than about any one of us, my illus-
trious self included, as far as I could see."

In her secret soul his hearer had to own this statement just.
But she kept the owning to herself, and, with a rapidity upon
which she could not help congratulating herself, instituted a
flanking movement.

" You hear all the gossip, Ludovic," she said. " Of course
it is no good my asking Mr. Barking about that sort of thing.
Even if he heard it he would not remember it. His mind is
too much occupied. If a woman marries a man with large
political interests she must just give herself to them generously.
It is very interesting, and one feels, of course, one is helping
:to make history. But still one has to sacrifice something. I
:^hear next to nothing of what is going on — the gossip, I mean.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 287

And so tell me, what do you hear about her, about Madame
de Vallorbes ? "

" At first hand only that which you must know perfectly
well yourself, my dear Louisa. Didn't you sit opposite to her
at luncheon, yesterday ? — That she is a vastly good-looking
and attractive woman."

" At second hand, then ? "

" At second hand ? Oh ! at second hand I know various
amiable little odds and ends such as are commonly reported
by the uncharitable and censorious," Ludovic answered
mildly. " Probably more than half of these little treasures are
pure fiction, generated by envy, conceived by malice."

" Pray, Ludovic ! " his sister exclaimed. But she recovered
herself, and added : — " you may as well tell me all the same.
I think, under the circumstances, it would be better for me ta
hear."

'' You really wish to hear ? Well, I give it you for what
it is worth. I don't vouch for the truth of a single item.
For all we can tell, nice, kind friends may be recounting
kindred anecdotes of Alicia and the blameless Winterbotham^
or even of you, Louisa, and Mr. Barking."

Mr. Quayle fixed a glance of surpassing graciousness upon
his sister as he uttered these agreeable suggestions, and fervid
curiosity alone enabled her to resist a rejoinder and to main-
tain a dignified silence.

" It is said — and this probably is true — that she never cared
two straws for de Vallorbes, but was jockeyed in the marriage
— just as you might jockey Constance, you know, Louisa — by
her mother, who has the reputation of being a somewhat frisky
matron with a keen eye to the main chance. She is not quite
all, 1 understand, a tender heart could desire in the way of a
parent. It is further said that la belle Helene makes the
dollars fly even more freely than did de Vallorbes in his best
days, and he has the credit of having been something of a:
viveur. He knew not only his Paris, but his Baden-Baden^
and his Naples, and various other warm corners where great
and good men do commonly congregate. It is added that la
belle Helene already gives promise of being playful in other
ways beside that of expenditure. And that de Vallorbes has
been heard to lament openly that he is not a native of some
enlightened country in which the divorce court charitably in-

a88 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

tervenes to sever overhard connubial knots. In short. It is
rumoured that de Vallorbes is not a conspicuous example of
the wildly happy husband."

" In short, she is not respec "

But the young man held up his hands and cried out feel-
ingly :—

" Don't, pray don't, my dear Louisa. Let us walk delicately
as Agag — my father's morning ministrations to the maids
again ! For how, as I pointed out just now, do we know
what insidious little tales may not be in circulation regarding
yourself and those nearest and dearest to you ? "

Ludovic Quayle turned his head and once again looked out
of the window, his beautiful mouth visited by a slightly
malicious smile. The train was sliding onward above
crowded, sordid courts and narrow alleys, festering, as it
seemed, with a very plague of poverty-stricken and unwhole-
some humanity. Here the line runs parallel to the river —
sullen to-day, blotted with black floats and lines of grimy
barges, which straining, smoke-vomiting steam-tugs towed
slowly against a strong flowing tide. On the opposite bank
the heavy masses of the Abbey, the long decorated facade and
towers of the Houses of Parliament, stood out ghostly and
livid in a gleam of frail, unrelated sunshine against the murk
of the smoky sky.

" I should have supposed Sir Richard Calmady was steady,"
Lady Louisa remarked, inconsequently and rather stiffly.
Ludovic really was exasperating.

" Steady ? Oh ! perfectly. Poor, dear chap, he hasn't had
much chance of being anything else as yet."

" Still, of course. Lady Calmady would prefer his being
settled. Clearly it would be much better in every way. All
things considered, he is certainly one of the people who should
marry young. And Connie would be an excellent marriage
for him, excellent — thoroughly suitable, better, really, than on
the face of it he could hope for. Ludovic, just look out
please and sec if the carriage is here. Pocock always loses
her head at a terminus, and misses the men-servants. Yes,
there is Frederic — with his back to the train, looking the
wrong way, of course. He really is too stupid."

Mr. Quayle, however, succeeded in attracting the footman's
attention, and, assisted by that functionary and the lean and

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 289

anxious Pocock — her arms full of bags and umbrellas — con-
veyed his sister out of the railway carriage and into the wait-
ing brougham. She graciously offered to put him down at
his rooms, in St. James's Place, on her way to the Barking;
mansion in Albert Gate, but the young man declined that
honour.

" Good-bye, Louisa," he said, leaning his elbows on the
open window of the brougham and thereby presenting the
back view of an irreproachably cut overcoat and trousers to
the passers-by. " I have to thank you for a most interesting
and instructive journey. Your efforts to secure the prosperity
of the family are wholly praiseworthy. I commend them. I
hav« a profound respect for your generalship. Still, pauper
though I am, I am willing to lay you a hundred to one in
golden guineas that you will never square papa."

Subsequently the young man bestowed himself in a han-
som, and rattled away in the wake of the Barking equipage
down the objectionably steep hill which leads from the roar
and turmoil of the station into the Waterloo Bridge road.

" I might have offered heavier odds," he said to himself^
'' for never, never will she square papa."

And, not without a light sense of shame, he was conscious
that he made this reflection with a measure of relief.

CHAPTER XI

CONTAINING SAMPLES BOTH OF EARTHLY AND HEAVENLV

LOVE

KATHERINE stood in the central space of the great,
state bedroom. It was just upon midnight, yet she
still wore her jewels and her handsome, trailing, black, velvet
dress. She was very tired. But that tiredness proceeded less
from physical than mental weariness. This she recognised,
and foresaw that weariness of this character was not likely ta
find relief and extinction within the shelter of the curtains of
the stately bed, whereon the ancient Persian legend of the
flight of the Hart through the tangled Forest of This Life
was so deftly and quaintly embroidered. For, unhappily to-

ngo SIR RICHARD CALMADY

night, the leopard, Care, followed very close behind. And
Katherine, taking the ancient legend as very literally descrip-
tive of her existing state of mind feared that, should she un-
dress and seek the shelter of the rose-lined curtains the leopard
would seek it also, and, crouching at her feet, his evil yellow
eyes would gaze into her own, wide open, all through that
which remained of the night. The night, moreover, was very
wild. A westerly gale, with now and again tumultuous
violence of rain, rattled the many panes of the windows,
wailed in every crevice of door and casement, roared through
the mile-long elm avenue below, and roared in the chimneys
above. The Prince of the Power of the Air was let loose,
and announced his presence as with the shout of battle.
Sleep was out of the question under present conditions and in
her present humour. Therefore Lady Calmady had dismissed
Clara — now promoted to the dignified office of lady's-maid —
and that bright-eyed and devoted waiting-woman had departed
reluctant, almost in tears, protesting that : — " it was quite too
bad, for her ladyship was being regularly worn out with all
the talking and company. And she, for her part, should be
heartily glad when the entertaining v/as over and they were all
comfortably to themselves again."

Nor could Katherine honestly assert that she would be al-
together sorry when the hour struck, to-morrow, for the de-
parture of her guests. For it appeared to her that, notwith-
standing the courtesy and affection of her brother and the
triumphant charm of her niece, a spirit of unrest had en-
tered Brockhurst along with their entry. Would that same
spirit depart along with their departing ? She questioned it.
She was oppressed by a fear that that spirit of unrest had
come to stay. And so it was that as she w^alked the length
and breadth of the lofty, white-paneled room, for all the rage
and fury of the storm without, she still heard the soft padding
of Care, the leopard, close behind.

Then a singular desolation and sense of homelessness came
upon Katherine. Turn where she would there seemed no
comfort, no escape, no sure promise of eventual rest. Things
human and material were emptied not of joy only, but of in-
vitation to effort. For something had happened from which
there was no going back. A fair woman from a far country
iad come and looked upon her son, with the inevitable resultj

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 291

that youth had called to youth. And though the fair woman
in question, being already wedded wife, — Katherine was rather
pathetically pure-minded, — eould not in any dangerously prac-
tical manner steal away her son's heart, yet she would, only
too probably, prepare that heart and awaken in it desires of
subsequent stealing away on the part of some other fair
woman, as yet unknown, whose heart Dickie would do his
utmost to steal in exchange. And this filled her with anxiety
and far-reaching fears, not only because it was bitter to have
some woman other than herself hold the chief place in her
son's affections, but because she — as John Knott, even as.
Ludovic Quayle, though from quite other causes — could not
but apprehend possibilities of danger, even of disaster, sur-
rounding all question of love and marriage in the strange and
unusual case of Richard Calmady.

And thinking of these things, her sensibilities heightened
and intensified by fatigue and circumstances of time and place,,
a certain feverishness possessed her. That bedchamber of
many memories — exquisite and tragic — became intolerable ta
her. She opened the double doors and passed into the Chapel-
Room beyond, the light thrown by the tall wax candles set in
silver branches upon her toilet-table, passing with her through
the widely open doors and faintly illuminating the near end of
the great room. There was other subdued light in the room
as well. For a glowing mass of coal and wood still remained
in the brass basket upon the hearth, and the ruddy brightness
of it touched the mouldings of the ceiling, glowed on the
polished corners and carvings of tables, what-nots, and upon
the mahogany frames of solid, Georgian sofas and chairs.

At first sight, notwithstanding the roaring of wind and
ripping of rain without, there seemed offer of comfort in this
calm and spacious place, the atmosphere of it sweet with
bowls of autumn violets and greenhouse-grown roses. Kath-
erine sat down in Richard's low armchair and gazed into the
crimson heart of the fire. She made a valiant effort to put
away haunting fears, to resume her accustomed attitude of
stoicism, of tranquil, if slightly defiant, courage. But Care,,
the leopard, refused to be driven away. Surely, stealthily he
had followed her out of her bedchamber and now crouched
at her side, making his presence felt so that all illusion of
comfort speedily fled. She knew that she was alone, con-

aga SIR RICHARD CALMADY j

sciously and bitterly alone, waking in the midst of the sleep-
ing house. No footstep would echo up the stairs, hot to find
her. No voice would call her name, in anxiety for her well-
being or in desire. It seemed to Katherine that a desert lay
outstretched about her on every hand, while she sat desolate
with Care for her sole companion. She recognised that her
existing isolation was, in a measure at all events, the natural
consequence of her own fortitude and ability. She had ruled
with so strong and discreet a hand that the order she had es-
tablished, the machinery she had set agoing, could now keep
going without her. Hence her loneliness. And that loneli-
ness as she sat by the dying fire, while the wind raved with-
out, was dreadful to her, peopled with phantoms she dared not
look upon. For, not only the accustomed burden of her
motherhood was upon her, but that other unaccustomed burden
of admitted middle-age. And this other burden, which it is
appointed a woman shall bear while her heart often is still all
too sadly young, dragged her down. The conviction pressed
home on her that for her the splendid game was indeed over,
and that, for very pride's sake, she must voluntarily stand
aside and submit to rank herself with things grown obsolete,
with fashions past and out of date.

Katherine rose to her feet, filled, for the moment, by an
immense compassion for her own womanhood, by an over-
mastering longing for sympathy. She was so tired of the long
struggle with sorrow, so tired of her own attitude of sustained
courage. And now, when surely a little respite and repose
might have been granted her, it seemed that a new order of
courage was demanded of her, a courage passive rather than
active, a courage of relinquishment and self-effacement. That
was a little too much. For all her valiant spirit, she shrank
away. She grew weak. She could not face it.

And so it happened that to-night — as once long ago, when
poor Richard siiffered his hour of mental and physical torment
at the skilful, yet relentless hands of Dr. Knott, in the bed-
chamber near by — Katherine's anguish and revolt found ex-
pression in restless pacings, and those pacings brought her to
the chapel door. It stood ajar. Before the altar the three
hanging lamps showed each its tongue of crimson flame. A
whiteness of flowers, set in golden vases upon the re-table,
was just distinguishable. But the delicately carved spires and

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 293

canopies of stalls, the fair pictured saints, and figure of the
risen Christ — His wounded feet shining like pearls upon the
azure floor of heaven — in the east window, were lost in soft^
thick, all-pervading gloom. The place was curiously still, as
though waiting silently, in solemn and strained expectation for
the accomplishment of some mysterious visitation. And, all
the while without, the gale flung itself wailing against the
angles of the masonry, and the rain beat upon the glass of the
high, narrow windows as with a passion of despairing tears.

For some time Katherine waited in the doorway, a sombre
figure in her trailing, velvet dress. The hushed stillness of
the chapel, the confusion and clamour of the tempest, taken
thus in connection, were very telling. They exercised a
strong influence over her already somewhat exalted imagina-
tion. Could it be, she asked herself, that these typified the
rest of the religious, and the unrest of the secular life ? Julius
March would interpret the contrast they afforded in some
such manner no doubt. And what if Julius, after all, were
right ? What if, shutting God out of the heart, you also shut
that heart out from all peaceful dwelling-places, leaving it
homeless, at the mercy of every passing storm ? Katherine
was bruised in spirit. The longing for some sure refuge,
some abiding city was dominant in her. The needs of her
soul, so long ignored and repudiated, asserted themselves.
Yes, what if Julius were right, and if content and happiness
— the only happiness which has in it the grace of continuance
— consisted in submission to, and glad acquiescence in, the
will of God ?

Thus did she muse, gazing questioningly at the whiteness
of the altar flowers and those steady tongues of flame, hearing
the silence, as of reverent waiting, which dwelt in the place.
But, on the other hand, to give, in this her hour of weakness,
that which she had refused in the hours of clear-seeing
strength ; — to let go, because she was alone and the unloveli-
ness of age claimed her, that sense of bitter injury and in-
justice which she had hugged to her breast when young and
still aware of her empire, — would not such action be con-
temptibly poor spirited ? She was no child to be humbled
into confession by the rod, frightened into submission by the
dark. To abase herself, in the hope of receiving spiritual
consolation, appeared to her as an act of disloyalty to her dead

a94 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

love and her maimed and crippled son. She turned away with
a rather superb lift of her beautiful head, and went back to her
own bedchamber again. She hardened herself in opposition,
putting the invitations of grace from her as she might have
put those of temptation. She would yield to weakness, to
feverish agitations and aimless longings, no more. Whether
sleep elected to visit her or not, she would undress and seek
her bed.

But hardly had she closed the door and, standing before her
toilet-table, began to unclasp the pearls from her throat and
bracelets from her wrists, than a sound, quite other than agree-
able or reassuring, saluted her ears from close by. It pro-
ceeded from the room next door, now unoccupied, since Rich-
ard, some five or six years ago, jealous of the dignity of his
youth, had petitioned to be permitted to remove himself and
his possessions to the suite of rooms immediately below. This
comprised the Gun-Room, a bed and dressing-room, and a
fourth room connecting with the offices, which came in handy
for his valet. Since his decline upon this more commodious
apartment, the old nursery had stood vacant. Katherine
could not find it in her heart to touch it. It was furnished
now as in Dickie's childish days, when, night and morning,
she had visited it to make sure of her darling's health and
safety.

And it was in this shrine of tender recollections that dis-
quieting sounds now arose. Hard claws rattled upon the
boarded spaces of the floor. Some creature snored and panted
against the bottom of the door, pushed it with so heavy a
weight that the panels creaked, flung itself down uneasily,
then moved to and fro again, with that harsh rattling of claws.
The image of Care, the leopard, as embroidered upon the
curtains of her bed, was so present to Katherine's imagination
to-night that, for a moment, she lost her hold on probability
and common sense. It appeared to her that the anxieties and
perturbations which oppressed her had taken on bodily form,
and, in the shape of a devouring beast, besieged her chamber
door. The conception was grisly. Both mind and body being
rather overstrained, it filled her with something approaching
panic. No one was within call. To rouse her brother, or
Julius, she must make a tour of half the house. Again the
creature pushed against the creaking panels, and, then, pant'

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 295

ing and snoring, began ripping away the matting from the
door-sill.

The terror of the unknown is, after all, greater than that
of the known. It was improbable, though the hour was late
and the night wild, that savage beasts or cares incarnate should
actually be in possession of Dickie's disused nursery. Kath-
erine braced herself and turned the handle. Still the vision
disclosed by the opening door was at first sight monstrous
enough. A moving mass of dirty white, low down against
the encircling darkness, bandy legs, and great grinning mouth.
The bull-dog stood up, whining, fawning upon her, thrusting
his heavy head into her hand.

" Why Camp, good old friend, what brings you here I
Are you, too, homeless to-night ? But why have you deserted
your master ? "

And then Lady Calmady's panic fears took on another
aspect. Far from being allayed they were increased. An
apprehension of something actively evil abroad in the great,
sleeping house assailed her. She trembled from head to foot.
And yet, even while she shrank and trembled, her courage
reawoke. For she perceived that as yet she need not rank
herself wholly among fashions passed and things grown obso-
lete. She had her place and value still. She was wanted, she
was called for — that she knew — though by whom wanted and
for what purpose she, as yet, knew not.

The bull-dog, meanwhile, his heavy head carried low, his
crooked tail drooping, trotted slowly away into the darkness
and then trotted back. He squatted upon his haunches, look-
ing up with anxious, bloodshot eyes. He trotted away again,
and again returned and stood waiting, his whole aspect elo-
quent in its dumb appeal. He implored her to follow, and
Katherine, fetching one of the silver candlesticks from her
dressing-table, obeyed.

She followed her ugly, faithful guide across the vacant dis-
used nursery, and on down the uncarpeted turning staircase
which opens into the square lobby outside the Gun-Room.
The diamond panes of the staircase windows chattered in their
leaded frames, and the wind shrieked in the spouts, and angles,
and carved stonework, of the inner courtyard as she passed.
The gale was at its height, loud and insistent. Yet the many-
toned violence of it seemed to bear strange and intimate

a96 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

relation — as that of a great orchestra to a single dominant
human voice — to the subtle, evil influence w^hich she felt to
be at large vi^ithin the sleeping house. And so, without paus-
ing to consider the w^isdom of her action, pushed by the con-
viction that something of profound import was taking place,
and that some one, or something, must be saved by her from
threatening danger, Katherine threw open the Gun-Room door.

The shout of the storm seemed far away. This place was
quick with stillness too, with the hush of waiting for the
accomplishment of some mysterious event or visitation, even
as the dark chapel up-stairs had been. Only here moving
effect of soft, brilliant light, of caressing warmth, of vague,
insidious fragrance met her. Katherine Calmady had only
Jcnown passion in its purest and most legitimate form. It had
been for her, innocent of all grossness, or suggestion of
degradation, fair and lovely and natural, revelation of highest
and most enchanting secrets. But having once known it in its
fulness, she could not fail to recognise its presence, even
though it wore a diabolic, rather than angelic face. That
passion met her now, exultant, effulgent, along with that light
and heat and fragrance, she did not for an instant doubt.
And the splendour of its near neighbourhood turned her
faint with dread and with poignant memories. She paused
jupon the threshold, steadying herself with one hand against
the cold, stone jamb of the arched doorway, while in the other
she held the massive candlestick and its flickering, draught-
driven lights.

A mist was before her eyes, a singing in her ears, so that
she had much ado to see clearly and reckon justly with that
which she did see. Helen de Vallorbes, clothed in a flowing,
yet clinging, silken garment of turquoise, shot with blue purple
and shimmering glaucous green — a garment in colour such as
that with which the waves of Adriatic might have clothed the
rosy limbs of new-born Aphrodite, as she rose from the cool,
translucent sea-deeps — knelt upon the tiger-skin before the
dancing fire. Her hands grasped the two arms of Richard's
chair. She leaned down right across it, the lines and curves
of her beautiful body discernible under her delicate draperies.
The long, open sleeves of her dress fell away from her out-
stretched arms, showing them in their completeness from wrist
to shoulder. Her head was thrown back, so that her rounded

I

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 297

throat stood out, and the pure line of her lower jaw was
salient. Her eyes were half closed, while all the mass of her
honey-coloured hair was gathered low down on the nape of her
neck into a net of golden thread. A golden, netted girdle was
knotted loosely a., out her loins, the tasseled ends of it drag-
ging upon the floor. She wore no jewels, nor were they
needed, for the loveliness of her person, discovered rather than
concealed by those changeful sea-blue draperies, was already
dangerously potent.

All this Katherine saw — a radiant vision of youth, an
incarnation, not of care and haunting fears, but of pleasure
and haunting delights. And she saw more than this. For in
the depths of that long, low armchair Richard sat, stiffly
erect, his face dead white, thin, and strained — Richard, as she
had never beheld him before, though she knew the face well
enough. It was his father's face as she had seen it on her mar-
riage night, and on his death night too, when his fingers had
been clasped about her throat to the point of strangulation.
Katherine dared look no longer. Her heart stood still.
Shame and anger took her, and along with these an immense
nostalgia for that which had once been and was not. Her
instinct was of flight. But Camp trotted forward, growling,
and squatted between the pedestals of the library-table, his red
eyes blinking sullenly in the square shadow. Involuntarily
Katherine followed him part way across the room.

Richard looked full at his cousin, absorbed, rigid, an amaze-
ment of question in his eyes. Not a muscle of his face moved.
But Madame de Vallorbes' absorption was less complete. She
started slightly and half turned her head.

"Ah! there is that dog again," she said. "What has
brought him back ? He hates me."

" Damn the dog ! " Richard exclaimed, hoarsely under his
breath. Then he said : — " Helen, Helen, you know "

But Madame de Vallorbes had turned her head yet further,
and her arched eyelids opened quite wide for once, while she
smiled a little, her lips parting and revealing her pretty teeth
tightly set.

"Ah! the advent of the bull-dog explains itself," she ex-
claimed. "Here is Aunt Katherine herself!"

Slowly, and with an inimitable grace, she rose to her feet.
Her long, winged sleeves floated back into place, covering her

298 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

bare arms. Her composure was astonishing, even to herself.
Yet her breath came a trifle quick as she contemplated Lady
Calmadv with the same enigmatic smile, her chin carried high
— the nnest suggestion of challenge and insolence in it — her
eyes still unusually wide open and startlingly bright.

" Richard holds a little court to-night/' she continued airily,
" thanks to the storm. You also have come to seek the pro-
tection of his presence it appears. Aunt Katherine. Indeed, I
am not surprised, for you certainly brew very wild weather at
Brockhurst, at times."

Something in the young lady's bearing had restored Kather-
ine's self-control.

"The wind is going down," she replied calmly. "The
storm need not alarm you, or keep you watching any longer,
Helen."

'^ Ah ! pardon me — you know you are accustomed to these
tempests," the younger woman rejoined. " To me it still
sounds more than sufficiently violent."

" Yes, but merely on this side of the house, where Richard's
and my rooms are situated. The wind has shifted, and I be-
lieve on your side you will suffer no further disturbance. You
will find it quite quiet. Then, moreover, you have to rise
early to-morrow — or rather to-day. You have a long journey
before you and should secure all the rest you can."

Madame de Vallorbes gathered her silken draperies about
her absently. For a moment she looked down at the tiger-
skin, then back at Lady Calmady.

" Ah yes ! " she said, " it is thoughtful of you to remind me
of that. To-day I start on my homeward journey. It should
give me very much pleasure, should it not ? But — do not be
shocked. Aunt Katherine — I confess I am not altogether en-
raptured at the prospect. I have been too happy, too kindly
treated, here at Brockhurst, for it to be other than a sorrow to
me to depart."

She turned to Richard, her expression serious, intimate, ap-
pealing. Then she shook back her fair head, and as though
in obedience to an irresistible movement of tenderness, stooped
down swiftly over him — seeming to drown him in the shim-
mering waves of some azure, and thin, clear green, and royal,
blue-purple sea — while she kissed him full and daringly upon
the mouth.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 299

" Good- night, good-bye, dear Dickie," she said. "Yes,
good-bye — for I ahnost hope I may not see you in the morn-
ing. It would be a little chilly and inadequate, any other fare-
well after this. I am grateful to you. — And remember, I too
am among those who, to their sorrow, never forget.'*

She approached Lady Calmady, her manner natural, un-
abashed, playful even, and gay.

" See, I am ready to go to bed like a good child. Aunt
Katherine," she said, " supported by your assurance that my
side of the house is no longer rendered terrific by wind and
rain. But — I am so distressed to trouble you — but all the
lamps are out, and I am none too sure of my way. It would
be a rather tragic ending to my happy visit if I incontinently
lost myself and wandered till dawn, disconsolate, up and down
the passages and stairways of Richard's magnificent house. I
might even wander in here by mistake again, and that would
be unpardonably indiscreet, wouldn't it ? So, will you light
me to my own quarters, Aunt Katherine ? Thank you — how
charmingly kind and sweet you are ! "

As she spoke Madame de Vallorbes moved lightly away and
passed on to the lobby, the heels of her pretty, cloth-of-gold slip-
pers ringing quite sharply on the gray, stone quarries without.
And, even as a little while back she had followed the heavy-
headed and ungainly bull-dog, so now Lady Calmady, in her
trailing, black, velvet dress, silver candlestick in hand, followed
this radiant, fleet-footed creature, whose every movement was
eloquent of youth and health and an almost prodigal joy of
living. Neither woman spoke as they crossed the lobby, and
passed the pierced and arcaded stone screen which divides the
outer from the inner hall. Now and again the flickering can-
dle-light glinted on the younger woman's girdle or the net
which controlled the soft masses of her honey-coloured hair.
Now and again a draught taking the folds of her silken raiment
blew it hither and thither, disclosing her beautiful arms or
quick-moving slippered feet. She was clothed with splendour
of the sea, crowned, and shod, and girt about the loins, with
gold. And she fled on silently, till the wide, shallow-stepped
stairway, leading up to the rooms she occupied, was reached.
There, for a moment, she paused.

" Pray come no further," she said, and went on rapidly up
the flight. On the landing she stopped, a dimly discerned

300 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

figure, blue and gold against the dim whiteness of high pan-
eled walls, moulded ceiling, stairway, and long descending
balustrade.

" I have arrived ! " she cried, and her clear voice took
strange inflections of mockery and laughter. " I have arrived !
I am perfectly secure now and safe. Let us hope all other
inmates of Brockhurst are equally so this stormy night. A
thousand thanks, dear Aunt Katherine, for your guidance, and
a thousand apologies for bringing you so far. Now let me
trouble you no longer."

The Gun-Room Katherine found just as she had left it,
save that Camp stood on the tiger-skin before the fire, his
fore-paws and his great, grinning muzzle resting on the arm
of Richard's chair. Camp whined a little. Mechanically the
young man raised his hand and pulled the dog's long, drooping
ears. His face was still dead white, and there were lines un-
der his eyes and about the corners of his mouth, as of one who
tries to subdue expression of physical pain. He looked
straight at Lady Calmady.

" Ah ! " he said, " so you have come back ! You observe
I have changed partners ! "

And again he pulled the dog's ears, while it appeared to
his listener that his voice curiously echoed that other voice
which had so lately addressed and dismissed her, taking on
inflections of mockery. But as she nerved herself to an-
swer, he continued, hastily : —

" I want nothing, dear mother, nothing in the world. Pray
don't concern yourself any more about me to-night. Haven't
I Camp for company ? Lamps ? Oh ! I can put them out
perfectly well myself. You were right, of course, perfectly
right, to come if you were anxious about me. But now surely
you are satisfied ? "

Suddenly Richard bowed his head, putting both hands over
his eyes.

" Only now, mother, if you love me, go," he said, with a
great sob in his voice. " For God's sake go, and leave me to
myself."

But after sleepless hours, in the melancholy, blear dawn of
the November day, Katherine lying, face downwards, within
the shelter of the embroidered curtains of the state bed^ made
her submission at last and prayed.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI 301

(C

I am helpless, oh, Father Almighty ! I have neither wit
nor understanding, nor strength. Have mercy, lest my reason
depart from me. I have sinned, for years I have sinned, set-
ting my will, my judgment, my righteousness against Thine.
Take me, forgive me, teach me. I bring nothing. I ask
everything. I am empty. Fill me with Thyself, even as
with water one fills an empty cup. Give me the courage
of patience instead of the courage of battle. Give me the
courage of meekness in place of the courage of pride."

BOOK IV

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP

CHAPTER I

LADY LOUISA BARKING TRACES THE FINGER OF PROVIDENCE

' I ^HE spirit of unrest, which had entered Brockhurst in the
dim October weather, along with certain guests, did not
— Lady Calmady had foreseen as much — leave with their
leaving. It remained a constant quantity. Further, it engen-
dered events very far away from and, at first sight, wholly at
variance with those which had accompanied its advent.

For example. Lady Louisa Barking, passing through
Lowndes Square one bleak, March morning on her way from
Albert Gate to do a little quiet, shopping in Sloane Street, ob-
served that the Calmadys' house — situated at the corner of the

square and of Street — was given over to a small army of

work-people. During Richard's minority it had been let for
a term of years to Sir Reginald Aldham, of Aldham Revel
in Midlandshire. Since Dickie's coming of age it had stood
empty, pending a migration of the Brockhurst establishment,
which migration had, in point of fact, never yet taken place.
But now, as Lady Louisa, walking with a firm and distin-
guished tread along the gray, wind-swept pavements, remarked^
the house was in process of redecoration, of painting within
and without. And, looking on these things. Lady Louisa's
soul received very sensible comfort. She was extremely tena-
cious of purpose. And, in respect of one purpose at least,
heaven had not seen fit, during the last four or five months, to
«milc upon her. Superstitious persons might have regarded

^02

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 303

this fact as a warning. Lady Louisa, however, merely re-
garded it as an oversight. Now at last, so it appeared to her,
heaven had awakened to a consciousness of its delinquencies,
with the satisfactory result that her own commendable patience
touched on reasonable hope of reward. And this was the
more agreeable and comforting to her because the Quayle family
affairs were not, it must be owned, at their brightest and best
just at present. Clouds lowered on the family horizon. For
some weeks she had felt the situation called for effective action
on her part. But then, how to act most effectively she knew
not. Now the needed opportunity stared her in the face,
along with those high ladders and scaffolding poles surround-
ing the Calmady mansion. She decided, there and then, to
take the field ; but to take it discreetly, to effect a turning
movement, not attempt a front attack.

So, on her return to Albert Gate, after the completion of
her morning shopping, she employed the half hour before
luncheon in writing an affectionate, sisterly letter to Ludovic
Quayle. That accomplished, young gentleman happened, as
she was aware, to be staying at Brockhurst. She asked his
opinion — in confidence — on the present very uncomfortable
condition of the family fortunes, declaring how implicitly she
trusted his good sense and respected his judgment. Then,
passing adroitly to less burning questions, she ended thus —

" Pray let Lady Calmady know how really delighted every^
body is to hear she and Sir Richard will be up this season. I
do trust, as I am such a near neighbour, that if there is anything
I can do for her, either now, or later when they are settling,
she will not hesitate to let me know. It would be such a
sincere pleasure to me. Mr, Barking is too busy with tiresome,
parliamentary committees to be able to allow himself more
than a week at Easter. I should be thankful for a longer rest,
for I am feeling dreadfully fagged. But you know how con-
scientious he always is ; and of course one must pay a certain
price for the confidence the leaders of one's party repose in
one. So do tell Lady Calmady we are quite sure to be back
immediately after Easter."

Reading which sentences Mr. Ouayle permitted himself a
fine smile on more than one count.

" Louisa reminds me of the sweet little poem of * Bruce
and the Spider,'" he said to himself, "She displays heroic

304 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

persistence. Her methods are a trifle crude though. To
provoke statements by making them is but a primitive form of
diplomacy. Yet why be hard upon Louisa ? Like my poor^
dear father, she, more often than not, means well."

It followed that some few days later, on his return to Whit-
ney, Ludovic indited a voluminous letter to his sister, in his very
best style. " It is rather a waste," he reflected regretfully.
" She will miss the neatest points. The happiest turns of
phrase will be lost upon Louisa ! " To recoup himself for
which subjective loss the young man amused himself by giving
a very alarmist account of certain matters, though he was con-
strained to admit the pleasing fact that Sir Richard and Lady
Calmady really had it in contemplation to go up to town
somewhere about Easter.

And, truth to tell, the main subject of Mr. Quayle's letter
could hardly be otherwise than disquieting, for it was undenia-
ble that Lord Shotover's debts were causing both himself and
others serious embarrassment at this period. There was
nothing new in this, that young nobleman's indebtedness be-
ing a permanent factor in his family's financial situation*
This spring his indebtedness had passed from the chronic to the
acute stage, that was all. With the consequence that it be-
came evident Lord Shotover's debts must be paid, or his re-
lations must submit to the annoyance of seeing him pass
through the Bankruptcy Court. Which of these objectiona-
ble alternatives was least objectionable Lord Fallowfeild still
stood in doubt, when, in obedience to the parental summons,
the young man reached Whitney. Lord Fallowfeild had
whipped himself up into a laudable heat of righteous indigna-
tion before the arrival of the prodigal. Yet he contrived to
be out when the dog-cart conveying the said prodigal, and Mr.
Decies of the loist Lancers — a friend of Guy Quayle, home
on leave from India, whence he brought news of his fellow-
subaltern — actually drove up to the door. When, pushed
thereto by an accusing conscience, he did at last come in. Lord
Fallowfeild easily persuaded himself that there really was not
time before dinner for the momentous conversation. More-
over, being very full of the milk of human kindness, he
found it infinitely more agreeable to hear the praises of the
absent son, Guy, than to fall foul of the present son, Shotover.
So that it was not till quite late that night, by which time he m

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 305

was slightly sleepy, while his anger had sensibly evaporated,
that the interview did, actually, take place.

" Now then, Shotover, march off to the place of execution,'*
Ludovic Quayle said sweetly, as he picked up his bedroom
candlestick. " It was a deep and subtle thought that of
bringing down Decies. Only, query, did you think of it, or
was it just a bit of your usual luck ? "

Lord Shotover smiled rather ruefully upon his prosperous,
and, it may be added, slightly parsimonious, younger brother.

"Well, I don't deny it did occur to me it might work," he
admitted. "And after all, you know, one mercy is there's no
real vice about his dear old lordship."

Lord Fallowfeild fidgeted about the library, his expression
that of a well-nourished and healthy, but rather fretful
infant.

" Oh ! ah ! — well — so here you are, Shotover," he said.
*' Unpleasant business this of yours — uncommonly disagree-
able business for both of us."

" Deuced unpleasant business," the younger man echoed
heartily. He closely resembled his father in looks, save that
he was clean shaven and of a lighter build. Both father and
son had the same slight lisp in speaking. " Deuced unpleas-
ant," he repeated. " Nobody can feel that more than I do."

" Can't they though," said Lord Fallowfeild, with a charm-
ingly innocent air of surprise. " There, sit down, Shotover,
won't you ? It's a painful thing to do, but we've got to talk
it over, I suppose."

" Well, of course, if you're kind enough to give me the
time, you know, — that's rather what I came down here for."

" So you did though," the elder man returned, brightening
as though making an illuminating discovery. Then, fearing
he was forgetting his part and becoming amiable too rapidly,
he made a gallant effort to whip up his somnolent indignation.
*'It's very distressing to me to put it so plainly, but in my
opinion it's a disgraceful business."

" Oh ! I give you my word I know it," Lord Shotover
replied, with most disarming candour. His father affected,
with difficulty, not to hear the remark.

" It doesn't do for a man in your position to be owing
money all over the country. It brings the aristocracy into
contempt with the shop-keeping class. They're always on

3o6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the lookout for the shortcomings of their superiors, those pco
pie. And they do pay their debts, you see/'

" They've always got such a thundering lot of money/*
Lord Shotover put in. " Don't know how they'd contrive
to spend it unless they did pay their debts."

" Oh ! ah ! — yes " His father hesitated. It struck

him Shotover was a reasonable fellow, very reasonable, and he
took the whole matter in a very proper spirit. In short, it
was not easy to blow up Shotover. Lord Fallowfeild thrust
his hands far down into his trouser pockets and turned side-
ways in the great, leather-covered chair.

"I'm not narrow-minded or prejudiced," he began. "I
always have kept on civil terms with those sort of people and
always will. Courtesy is an obligation on the part of a gen-
tleman and a Christian. I'd as soon be rude to my tailor as
eat with my knife. But a man must respect his own rank or
others won't respect it, especially in these nasty, radical, level-
ing times. You must stand by your class. There's a vulgar
proverb about the bird that fouls its own nest, you know.
Well, I never did that. I've always stood by my own class.
Helped my poor brother Archibald — ^you can't remember him
— weren't born at the time — to run away with Lady Jane
Bateman. Low, common fellow Bateman. I never liked
Bateman. She left Ludovic all that money, you know '*

" Wish to goodness she'd left it to me," murmured Lord
Shotover.

" Eh ? " inquired his father. Then he fell into a morali-
sing vein. " Nasty, disreputable things elopements. I never
did approve of elopements. Leave other men's wives alone,
Shotover."

The younger man's mouth worked a little.

" The nuisance is sometimes they won't leave you alone."

Lord Fallowfeild gazed at him a moment, very genially.

" Oh ! ah ! — well — I suppose they won't," he said, and he
chuckled. "Anyhow I stood by your poor Uncle Archibald.
He was my brother of course, and she was a second cousin of
your mother's, so I felt bound to. And I saw them across
the Channel and into the Paris train. Dreadfully bad cross-
mg that night I remember, no private cabins to be had, and
Lady Jane was dreadfully ill. Never take your wife to sea on
your honeymoon, Shotover. It's too great a risk. That

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 307

business cost me a lot of money one way and another, and let
me in for a most painful scene with Bateman afterwards.
But, as I say, you're bound to stand by your own class.
That'll be my only reason for helping you, you understand,
Shotover, if I do help you."

" And I am sure I hope you will." — The young man rose
and stood with his back to the fire and his hands under his
coat-tails. He stooped a little, looking down pensively at the
hearth-rug between his feet. His clothes — not yet paid for,
or likely to be — claimed admiration, so did the length of his
legs and the neatness of his narrow hips.

'^ I can only assure you I shall be most awfully grateful if
you do help me," he said quietly. " I don't pretend to de-
serve it — but that doesn't lessen gratitude — rather the other
way, don't you know. I shall never forget it."

" Won't you though ? "

And for the life of him Lord Fallowfeild could not help
beaming upon this handsome prodigal. " Uncommonly high-
bred looking fellow, Shotover," he said to himself. "Don't
wonder women run after him. Uncommonly high bred, and
shows very nice feeling too."

And then the kindly and simple gentleman drew himself up
with a mental jerk, remembering that he was there to curse
rather than to bless. He fidgeted violently.

" Not that I have actually made up my mind to help you
yet," he went on. " I am very much inclined to cast you
adrift. It distresses me to put it to you so plainly, but you
are disgracefully extravagant, you know, Shotover."

'^ Oh ! I know," the young man admitted.

"You're a selfish fellow." — Lord Fallowfeild became re-
lentless. "Yes, it's extremely painful to me to say it to you,
but you are downright selfish. And that, in the long run,
comes uncommonly hard on your sisters. Good girls, your
sisters. Never given your mother or me any trouble, your
sisters. But money has to come from somewhere, and each
time I pay your debts I have to cut down your sisters'
portions."

"Yes, I know, and that's what's made me so infernally un-
willing to come to you about my affairs," Lord Shotover said,
in tones of perfectly genuine regret.

" Is it though ? " his father commented. " Good fellow at

3o8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

heart," he added to himself. " Displays very proper feeling.
Always was a good-hearted fellow."

" I can only tell you I've been awfully wretched about it
for the last three months."

" Have you though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild, with
sympathy.

" I got just about as low as I well could. I felt I was
nothing but a nuisance and encumbrance. It was beastly to
think of fleecing the girls, don't you know. I came precious
near cutting my throat — only that seemed rather a dirty way
of getting out of it all."

^' So it is — poor boy — quite right. Nasty mean way of
shirking your responsibilities. Quite agree with you. I have
never had any opinion of a man who cut his throat. Never
mention such a thing, Shotover." He blew his nose reso-
nantly.— " Never talk of such a thing," he repeated. " And —
poor boy — I — I'll pay your debts. Only I tell you this really
is the last time. There must be no misunderstanding about
that. You must reform, Shotover, if it's only on account of
your sisters. I don't want to take an unfair advantage of you
in alluding to your sisters. Only you must understand clearly
this is the last time. You see it's becoming too frequent. I
don't want to press the case unduly against you, but you rec-
ollect— I'm sure you do — I paid your debts in fifty-eight, and
again in sixty-two, or sixty-three, was it? Yes, it must have
been sixty-three, because that was the year my poor friend
Tom Henniker died. Good fellow Henniker — I missed
Henniker. And they wanted mc to take over the hounds.
Nice fellow in the hunting-field, Henniker. Never saw him
lose his temper but once, and that was when Image rode over
the hounds on the edge of Talepenny Wood."

" Rather coarse sort of brute. Image," put in Lord Shotover.

'^ And Henniker had such an excellent manner with the
farmers, genial and cheery, very cheery at times and yet with-
out any loss of dignity. Great test of a man's breeding that,
being cheery without loss of dignity. Now my poor friend,
Henniker — oh ! ah ! yes, where was I though ? Your debts
now, Shotover. Yes, it must have been sixty-three, because
they all wanted me to succeed him as master, and I had to
tell them I could not afi:'ord it, so it must have been just after
I cleared you."

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 309

He looked at his erring son with the most engaging air of
appeal and remonstrance.

" Really it won't do, Shotover," he repeated. " You must
reform. It's becoming too frequent. You'd better travel for
a time. That's the proper thing for a man in your position
to do when he's in low water. Not scuttle, of course. I
wouldn't on any account have you scuttle. But, three weeks
or a month hence when things are getting into shape, just
travel for a time. I'll arrange it all for you. Only never
talk of cutting your throat again. And you quite understand
this is positively the last time. I am very much in earnest,
my dear boy, nothing will move me. This settlement is final.
And we'll just run up quietly to town to-morrow and have a
talk with my lawyers. Fox and Goteway. Very civil and ac-
commodating fellow, Goteway — he may be able to make some
suggestions. Very nice, confidential- mannered person, Gote-
way. Knows how to hold his tongue and doesn't ask un-
necessary questions — useful man, Goteway "

Which things coming to the knowledge of Lady Louisa
Barking moved her at once to wrath, and to deepened convic-
tion that the moment for decisive action had arrived. It ap-
peared to her that her father had put himself out of court.
His weakness regarding his eldest son had practically delivered
him into her hand. She congratulated herself upon the good
which is thus beneficently permitted to spring out of evil.
Yet while recognising that a just Providence sometimes, at all
events, overrules human folly to the production of happy re-
sults, she was by no means disposed to spare the mortal whose
individual foolishness had given the divine wisdom its oppor-
tunity. Therefore when, some few days later. Lord Fallow-
feild called on her, after a third or fourth interview with
Messrs. Fox and Goteway — beaming, expansive, from the
sense of a merciful action accomplished — she received him in
a distinctly repressive manner. The great, white and gold
drawing-rooms in Albert Gate were not more frigid or un-
bending than the bearing of their mistress as she suffered her
father's embrace. And that amiable nobleman, notwithstand-
ing his large frame and exalted social position, felt himself
shiver inwardly in the presence of his daughter, even as he
could remember shivering when, as a small schoolboy, he had
been summoned to the dread presence of the headmaster.

310 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Very good rooms these of yours, Louisa," he began hastily.
Always have admired these rooms. Capital space for enter-
taining. Barking was quite right to secure the house as soon
as it was in the market. I told him at the time he would
never regret it.*'

Lady Louisa did not answer, but called after the retreating
footman, who had just brought in a stately and limited tea-
tray, much silver and little food : — " I am not at home,
William."

Then, as she put small and accurate measures of tea into a
massive teapot, she added severely : — " What is all this I hear
about Shotover, papa ? "

" Oh ! ah ! yes — poor Shotover. Came up to town to-
gether again to-day. Good-hearted fellow, your brother Shot-
over, but thoughtless. However I have had a most satisfac-
tory talk with my men of business. Fox and Goteway. I
know Barking does not think much of Fox and Goteway.
Wanted me to go to his own lawyers, Hodges and Banquet.
But if any one serves you conscientiously you should not
leave them. It's against my principles to turn off those who
serve me conscientiously. I told Barking so at the time, I
remember. It came out of the business about your settle-
ments, vvasn't it — or the last time I paid Shotover' s " He

cleared his throat hurriedly. " I see the Calmadys' house is
being done up," he continued. '^ Nice young fellow,
Calmady. But I never can help feeling a certain awkward-
ness with him. Takes you up rather short in conversation
too sometimes. Terribly distressing thing his deformity and
all that, both for himself and Lady Calmady. Hope, perhaps,
she doesn't feel it as some women would though — tactful
woman. Lady Calmady, and very good woman of business.
Still, never feel quite at my ease with Lady Calmady. Can't
help wondering how they'll do in London, you know. Rather
difficult thing his going about much with that "

Lady Louisa held out a small teacup. Her high penetra-
ting voice asserted itself resolutely against her father's kindly,
stumbling chatter, as she asked : —

" Is it true you are not coming up from Whitney this sea-
son ? "

" Oh ! — tea — yes, thank you very much, my dear. No — -
well, I think possibly we may not come up this year. Gote-

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 311

way believes he has heard of a very eligible tenant for the
Belgrave Square house, very eligible. And so, nothing actu-
ally decided yet, but I think very possibly we may not come

He spoke apologetically, regarding his daughter, over the
small teacup, v^^ith an expression of entreaty. Every feature
of his handsome, innocent countenance begged her not to deal
harshly with him. But Lady Louisa remained obdurate.

" Shotover*s conduct is becoming a positive scartdal," she
said.

" Not conduct, my dear — no, not conduct, only money,"
protested Lord Fallowfeild.

" If money is not conduct I really don't know what is,"
retorted his daughter. " I do not pretend to go in for such
fine distinctions. In any case Mr. Barking heard the most
shocking rumours at his club the other day."

" Did he though ? " ejaculated Lord Fallowfeild.

"He was too considerate to tell me anything very definite,
but he felt that, going out and seeing everybody as of course I
have to, it was only right I should have some hint of what
was being said. Every one is talking about Shotover. You
can imagine how perfectly intolerable it is for me to feel that
my brother's debts are being canvassed in this sort of way."

" I am very sorry there should be any gossip," Lord Fallow-
feild said humbly. " Nasty thing gossip — lies, too, mostly, all
of it. Nasty, low, unprofitable thing gossip."

"And, of course, your all not coming up will give colour to
it."

" Will it though ? I never thought of that. You always
see straight through things, Louisa. You have by far the
best head in the family, except Ludovic — uncommonly clever
fellow Ludovic. Wonder if I had better talk it all over with
Ludovic. If you and he agree in thinking our not coming up
will make more talk, why, if only on Shotover's account,
I "

But this was not in the least the turn which his daughter
desired the conversation to take.

" Pray remember you have other children besides Shotover,
papa ! " she said hastily. " And for every one's sake run no
further risk of impoverishing yourself. It is obvious that you
»iust save where you can. If there is the chance of a good

312 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

let for the Belgrave Square house, it would be madness to re-
fuse it. And, after all, you do not really care about London.
If there are any important debates in the Lords, you can al-
ways come up for a night or so. It does not matter about
you."

" Oh ! doesn't it though ? '* Lord Fallowfeild put in quite
humbly and gently.

" And mama would always rather stay on at Whitney.
Only it must not appear as if we were the least uncomfortable
at meeting people. I shall make it a point to go everywhere.
I shall be dreadfully fagged, of course, but I feel it a duty to
all of you to do so. And I should like the girls to go out too.
People must not suppose they have no gowns to their backs.
Maggie and Emily have had several seasons. I am less wor-
ried about them. But Connie must be seen. She is looking
extremely pretty."

"Isn't she though?" Lord Fallowfeild chimed in, bright-
ening. The picture of those reportedly gownless backs had
depressed him abominably.

" Yes, and she must have every advantage. I have quite
decided that. She must come up to me at once. I shall write
to mama and point out to her how necessary it is that one of
the girls, at least, should be very much en evidence this year.
And I am most anxious it should be Connie. As I undertake
all the fatigue and responsibility I feel I have a right of choice.
I will see that she is properly dressed. I undertake every-
thing. Now, papa, if you are going down by the 6:io train
you ought to start. Will you have a hansom ? "

Then, as she shook hands with him, and presented an un-
responsive cheek to the paternal lips, Lady Louisa clinched
the matter.

" I may consider it quite settled, then, about Constance ? "
she said. " I mentioned it to Mr. Barking yesterday, and we
agreed it ought to be done even if it entailed a little incon-
venience and expense. It is not right to be indifferent to ap-
pearances. The other two girls can come up for a little while
later. Alicia must help. Of course there is not much room
in that wretched, little Chelsea house of hers, but George
Winterbotham can turn out of his dressing-room. Alicia
must exert herself for once. And, papa, Connie need not
bring a maid. Those country girls from Whitney don't always

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 31J

fit In quite well with the upper servants, and yet there is a
difficulty about keeping them out of the housekeeper's room.
I will provide a maid for her. Pll write to mama about
everything to-morrow. And, papa, I do beg you will dis-
courage Shotover from coming here, for really I would much
rather not see him at present. Good-bye. Pray start at once.
You have barely time to get to Waterloo."

And so Lord Fallowfeild started, a little flustered, a little
crestfallen, on his homeward journey.

" Able woman, Louisa," he said to himself. " Uncommonly
clear-sighted woman, Louisa. But a trifle hard. Wonder if
Barking ever feels that, now ? Not very sensitive man. Bark-
ing, though. Suppose that hardness in Louisa comes of her
having no children. Always plenty of children in our family
— except my poor brother Archibald and Lady Jane, they had
no children. Yet somebody told me she'd had one by Bate-
man, which died. Never understood about that. Capital
thing for Ludovic she never did have any by Archibald. But
it's always curious to me Louisa should have no children.
Shouldn't have expected that somehow of Barking and Louisa.
Sets her more free, of course, in regard to her sisters. Very
thoughtful for her sisters, Louisa. I suppose she must have
Connie. Nuisance all this gossip about Shotover. Pretty
child, Connie — best looking of the lot. People say she's like
me. Wonderfully pretty child, Connie. That young fellow
Decies thinks so too, or I'm very much mistaken. Very much
attracted by Connie. Fine young fellow, Decies — comfort to
hear of Guy from him. Suppose she must go up to Louisa.
Gentlemanlike fellow, Decies. I shouldn't care to part with
Connie "

And then, his reflections becoming increasingly interjectional
as the train trundled away southwestward, Lord Fallowfeild
leaned back in the corner of the railway carriage and fell very
fast asleep.

314 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

CHAPTER II

TELLING HOW VANITY FAIR MADE ACQUAINTANCE WITH
RICHARD CALMADY

nr>

HERE was no refusing belief to the fact. The old, clois-
tered life at Brockhurst, for good or evil, was broken
up. Katherine Calmady recognised that another stage had
been reached on the relentless journey, that new prospects
opened, new horizons invited her anxious gaze. She recog-
nised also that all which had been was dead, according to its
existing form, and should receive burial, silent, somewhat sor-
rowful, yet not without hope of eventual resurrection in regard
to the nobler part of it. The fair coloured petals of the
flower fall away from the maturing fruit, the fruit rots to set
free the seed. Yet the vital principle remains, life lives on,
•though the material clothing of it change. And, therefore,
Katherine — an upspringing of patience and chastened forti-
tude within her, the result of her reconciliation to the Divine
Light and resignation of herself to its indwelling — set herself,
not to arrest the falling of the flower, but to help the ripening
of the seed. If the old garments were out of date, too straight
and narrow for her child's growth, then let others be found
him. She did not wait to have him ask, she offered, and that
without hint of reproach or of unwillingness.

Yet so to offer cost her not a little. For it was by no means
€asy to sink her natural pride, and go forth smiling with this
son of hers, at once beautiful and hideous in person, for all the
world to see. Something of personal heroism is demanded of
whoso prescribes heroic remedies, if those remedies are to suc-
ceed. At night, alone in the darkness, Katherine, suddenly
awaking, would be haunted by perception of the curious
glances, and curious comments, which must of necessity at-
tend Richard through all the brilliant pageant of the London
season. How would he bear it ? And then — self-distrust
laying fearful hands upon her — how would she bear it, too ?
Would her late acquired serenity of soul depart, her faith in

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 315

the gracious purposes of Almighty God suffer eclipse ? Would
she fall back into her former condition of black anger and re-
volt ? She prayed not. So long as these evils did not descend
upon her, she could bear the rest well enough. For, could
she but keep her faith, Katherine was beginning to regard all
other suffering which might be in store for her as a negligible
quantity. With her healthy body, and wholesome memories of
a great and perfect human love, it was almost impossible that
she should adopt a morbid and self-torturing attitude. Yet
any religious ideal, worth the name, will always have in it ai>
ascetic element. And that element was so far present with-
her that personal suffering had come to bear a not wholly un-
lovely aspect. She had ceased to gird against it. So long as.
Richard was amused and fairly content, so long as the evil
which had been abroad in Brockhurst House, that stormy au-
tumn night, could be frustrated, and the estrangement between
herself and Richard, — unacknowledged, yet sensibly present, —
which that evil had begotten, might be lessened, she cared lit-
tle what sacrifices she made, what fatigue, exertion, even pain,
she might be called on to endure. An enthusiasm of self-sur-
render animated her.

During the last five months, slowly and with stumbling feet„
yet very surely, she had carried her life and the burden of it
up to a higher plane. And, from that more elevated stand-
point, she saw both past events and existing relationships in-
perspective, according to their just and permanent values*
Only one object, one person, refused to range itself, and stood
out from the otherwise calm, if pensive, landscape as a threat-
ening danger, a monument of things wicked and fearful.
Katherine tried to turn her eyes from that object, for it pro-
voked in her a great hatred, a burning indignation, sadly at
variance with the saintly ideals which had so captivated her
mind and heart. Katherine remained — always would remain,
happily for others — very much a woman. And, as woman
and mother, she could not but hate that other woman who
had, as she feared, come very near seducing her son.

Therefore very various causes combined to reconcile her to
the coming adventure. Indeed she set forth on it with so
cheerful a countenance, that Richard, while charmed, was also
a trifle surprised by the alacrity with which she embraced it.
He regarded her somewhat critically^ questioning whether his

3i6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

mother was of a more worldly and light-minded disposition
than he had heretofore supposed.

There had been some talk of Julius March joining the con-
templated exodus. But he had declined, smiling rather sadly.

" No, no,'* he said. " To go would be a mistake and a
weakly selfish one on my part. I have long ceased to be a
man of cities, and am best employed, and indeed am most at
.my ease, herding my few sheep here in the wilderness. I am
Tpart and parcel of just all that which we have agreed it is wise
you shall leave behind you for a while. My presence would
lessen the thoroughness of the change of scene and of thought.
You take up a way of life which was familiar to you years
.ago. The habits of it will soon come back. I have never
known them. I should be a hindrance, rather than a help.
No, I will wait and keep the lamps burning before the altar,
and the fire burning upon the hearth until — and, please God,
it may be in peace, crowned with good fortune — you both
-come back."

But the adventure, fairly embarked on, displayed quite other
characteristics — ^^as is the way with such skittish folk — than
Katherine had anticipated. Against possibilities of mortifica-
tion, against possibilities of covert laughter and the pointing
fingers of the crowd, she had steeled herself. But it had not
occurred to her that both Richard's trial and her own might
take the form of an exuberant and slightly vulgar popularity,
and that, far from being shoved aside into the gutter, the
young man might be hoisted, with general acclamation, on to
the very throne of Vanity Fair.

The Brockhurst establishment .noved up to town at the be-
ginning of April. And by the end of the month. Sir Richard
Calmady, his wealth, his house, his horses, his dinners, his
mother's gracious beauty, and a certain mystery which sur-
rounded him, came to be in every one's mouth. A new star
had arisen in the social firmament, and all and sundry gathered
to observe the repotted brightness of its shining. Rich,
young, good-looking, well-connected, and strangely unfortu-
nate, here indeed was a novel and telling attraction among the
somewhat fly-blown shows of Vanity Fair! Many-tongued
rumour was busy with Dickie's name, his possessions and per-
:Sonality. The legend of the man — a thing often so very
other than the man himself — grew, Jonah's gourd-like, in wild

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 317

luxuriance. All those many persons who had known Lady
Calmady before her retirement from the world, hastened to re--
new acquaintance with her. While a larger, and it may be
added less distinguished, section of society, greedy of intimacy
with whoso, or whatsoever, might represent the fashion of the
hour, crowded upon their heels. Invitations showered down
thick as snowflakes in January. To get Sir Richard and Lady
Calmady was to secure the success of your entertainment,
whatever that entertainment might be — to secure it the more
certainly because the two persons in question exercised a rather-
severe process of selection, and were by no means to be had
for the asking.

All these things Ludovic Quayle noted, in a spirit which he
flattered himself was cynical, but which was, in point of fact^
rather anxiously affectionate. It had occurred to him that this,
sudden and unlooked-for popularity might turn Richard's head
a little, and develop in him a morbid self-love, that vanite de
monstre not uncommon to persons disgraced by nature. He
had feared Richard might begin to plume himself — as is the
way of such persons — less upon the charming qualities and.
gifts which he possessed in common with many other charm-
ing persons, than upon those deplorable peculiarities which
differentiated him from them. And it was with a sincerity of
relief, of which he felt a trifle ashamed, that, as time went on^
Mr. Quayle found himself unable to trace any such tendency,
that he observed his friend's wholesome pride and carefulness
to avoid all exposure of his deformity. Richard would drive
anywhere, and to any festivity, where driving was possible.
He would go to the theatre and opera. He would dine at a
few houses, and entertain largely at his own house. But he
would not put foot to ground in the presence of the many
women who courted him, or in that of the many men who
treated him with rather embarrassed kmdness and courtesy to
his face and spoke of him with pitying reserve behind his
back.

Other persons, besides Mr. Quayle, watched Richard
Calmady's social successes with interest. Among them was
Honoria St. Quentin. That young lady had been spending;
some weeks with Sir Reginald and Lady Aldham in Midland-
shire, and had now accompanied them up to town. Lady
Aldham's health was indifferent, confining her often for days-

3iS SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Jtogether to the sofa and a darkened room. Her husband,
meanwhile, possessed a craving for agreeable feminine society,
Jiable to be gratified in a somewhat errant manner abroad, un-
less gratified in a discreet manner at home. So Honoria had
taken over the duty, for friendship's sake, of keeping the well-
favoured, genial, middle-aged gentleman innocently amused,
'To Honoria, at this period, no experience came amiss. For
the past three years, since the death of her godmother. Lady
Tobermory, and her resultant access of fortune, she had wan-
tiered from place to place, seeing life, now in stately English
country houses, now among the overtaxed, under-fed women-
workers of Whitechapel and Soho, now in some obscure
Italian village among the folds of the purple Apennines. Now
.•she would patronise a middle-class British lodging-house,
along with some girl friend richer in talent than in pence,
in some seaside town. Now she would fancy the stringent
^etiquette of a British embassy at foreign court and capital.
Honoria was nothing if not various. But, amid all mutations
of occupation and of place, her fearlessness, her lazy grace,
her serious soul, her gallant bearing, her loyalty to the op-
pressed, remained the same. " Chaste and fair " as Artemis,
experimental as the Comte de St. Simon himself, Honoria
'roamed the world — fascinating yet never quite fascinated, en-
thusiastic yet evasive, seeking earnestly to live yet too self-
centred as yet to be able to recognise in what, after all, con-
sists the heart of living.

She and Mr. Quayle had met at Aldham Revel during the
past winter. She attracted, while slightly confusing, that ac-
complished young gentleman — confusing his judgment, well
understood, since Mr. Quayle himself was incapable of con*
fusion. Her views of men and things struck him as distinctly
original. Her attitude of mind appeared unconventional, yet
deeply rooted prejudices declared themselves where he would
least have anticipated their existence. And so it became a
favourite pastime of Mr. Quayle's to present to her cases of
conscience, of conduct, of manners or morals — usually those
of a common acquaintance — for discussion, that he might ob-
serve her verdict. He imagined this a scientific, psychologic
exercise. He desired, so he supposed, to gratify his own su-
perior, masculine intelligence, by noting the aberrations and
^arriving at the rationale of her thought. From which it may

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 319

be suspected that even Ludovic Quayle had his hours of inno
cent self-deception. Be that, however, as it may, certain it is
that in pursuit of this pastime he one day presented to her the
peculiar case of Richard Calmady for discussion, and that^
not without momentous, though indirect, result.

It happened thus. One noon in May, Ludovic had the
happiness of finding himself seated beside Miss St. Quentin
in the Park, watching the endless string of passing carriages
and the brilliant crowd on foot. Sir Reginald Aldham had
left his green chair — placed on the far side of the young
lady's — and leaned on the railings talking to some acquaint-
ance.

" A gay maturity," Ludovic remarked with his air oB
patronage, indicating the elder gentleman's shapely back.
" The term ' old boy ' has, alas, declined upon the vernacular,
and been put to base uses of jocosity, so it is a forbidden one.
Else, in the present instance, how applicable, how descriptive
a term ! Should we, I wonder, give thanks for it. Miss St-
Quentin, that the men of my generation will mature accord-
ing to a quite other pattern ? "

" Will not ripen, but sour ? " Honoria asked maliciously..
Her companion's invincible self-complacency frequently^
amused her. Then she added : — " But, you know, I'm very-
fond of him. It isn't altogether easy to keep straight as a
young boy, is it ? Depend upon it, it is ten times more
difficult to keep straight as an old one. For a man of that
temperament it can't be very plain sailing between fifty and
sixty."

Mr. Quayle looked at her in gentle inquiry, his long neclc.
directed forward, his chin slightly raised.

" Sailing ? The yacht is ? " —

" The yacht is laid up at Cowes. And you understand^
perfectly well what I mean," Honoria replied, somewhat
loftily. Her delicate face straightened with an expression of
sensitive pride. But her anger was short-lived. She speedily^
forgave him. The sunshine and fresh air, the radiant greem
of the young leaves, the rather superb spectacle of wealth,,
vigour, beauty, presented to her by the brilliant London world:
in the brilliant, summer noon was exhilarating, tending to*
lightness of heart. There was poetry of an opulent, resonant
sort in the brave show. Just then a company of Life Guards

22^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

clattered by, in splendour of white and scarlet and shining
.helmets. The rattle of accoutrements, and thud of the hoofs
of their trotting horses, detached itself arrestingly from the
surrounding murmur of many voices and ceaseless roar of the
traffic at Hyde Park Corner. A light came into Honoria's
eyes. It was good to be alive on such a day ! Moreover, in
her own purely platonic fashion, she really entertained a very
^reat liking for the young man seated at her side.

"You have missed your vocation," she said, while her eyes
narrowed and her upper lip shortened into a delightful smile.
'^ You were born to be a schoolmaster, a veritable pedagogue
and terror of illiterate youth. You love to correct. And my
rather sketchy English gives you an opportunity of which I
observe you are by no means slow to take advantage. You
care infinitely more for the manner of saying, than for the
thing said. Whereas I " — she broke off abruptly, and her
face straightened, became serious, almost severe, again. " Do
you see who Sir Reginald is speaking to ? " she added.
'*' There are the Calmadys."

A break had come in the loitering procession of correctly
clothed men and gaily clothed women, of tall hats and many
coloured parasols, and in the space thus affx)rded, the Brock-
hurst mail-phaeton became apparent drawn up against the rail-
ings. The horses, a noticeably fine and well-matched pair of
browns, were restless, notwithstanding the groom at their
heads. Foam whitened the rings of their bits and falling
flakes of it dabbled their chests. Lady Calmady leaned side-
ways over the leather folds of the hood, answering some in-
quiry of Sir Reginald, who, hat in hand, looked up at her.
She wore a close-fitting, gray, velvet coat, which revealed the
proportions of her full, but still youthful figure. The air and
sunshine had given her an unusual brightness of complexion,
so that in face as well as in figure, youth still, in a sensible
measure, claimed her. She turned her head, appealing, as it
seemed, to Richard, and the nimble breeze playing caressingly
with the soft white laces and gray plumes of her bonnet added
thereby somehow to the effect of glad and gracious content
pervading her aspect. Richard looked round and down at her,
half laughing. Unquestionably he was victoriously handsome,
seen thus, uplifted above the throng, handling his fine horses,
^1 trace of bodily disfigurement concealed, a touch of old-

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 321

world courtliness and tender respect in his manner as he ad-
dressed his mother.

Ludovic Quayle watched the little scene with close atten-
tion. Then, as the ranks of the smart procession closed up
again, hiding the carriage and its occupants from sight, he
leaned back with a movement of quiet satisfaction and turned
to his companion. Miss St. Quentin sat round in her chair,
presenting her long, slender, dust-coloured lace-and-silk-clad
person in profile to the passers-by, and so tilting her parasol as
to defy recognition. The expression of her pale face and
singular eyes was far from encouraging.

" Indeed — and why ? " Ludovic permitted himself to re-
mark, in tones of polite inquiry. " I had been led to believe
that you and Lady Calmady were on terms of rather warm
friendship."

>' We are," Honoria answered, " that is, at Brockhurst."

" Forgive my indiscretion — but why not in London ? "

The young lady looked full at him.

^' Mr. Quayle," she asked, " is it true that you are re-
sponsible for this new departure of theirs, for their coming up,
I mean ? "

" Responsible ? You do me too great an honour. Who:
am I that I should direct the action of my brother man ? But
Lady Calmady is good enough to trust me a little, and I own
that I advocated a modification of the existing regime.'' —
Ludovic crossed his long legs and fell to nursing one knee.
" It is not breach of confidence to tell you — since you know
the fact already — that fate decreed an alien element should
obtrude itself into the situation at Brockhurst last autumn. I
need name no names, I think ? "

Honoria's head was raised. She regarded him steadfastly,
but made no sign.

" Ah ! I need not name names," he repeated ; " I thought
not. Well, after the alien element removed itself — the two
facts may have no connection — Lady Calmady very certainly
never implied that they had — but, as I remarked, after the
alien element removed itself, it was observable that our poor,
dear Dickie Calmady became a trifle difficult, a trifle distrait,
in plain English most remarkably grumpy, and far from de-
lightful to live with. And his mother "

" It's too bad, altogether too bad ! " broke out Honoria hotly.

322 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Too bad of whom ? " Mr. Quayle asked, with the utmost
suavity. " Of the nameless, obtrusive, alien element, or of
poor, dear Dick ? "

The young lady closed her parasol slowly, and turning,
faced the sauntering crowd again.

" Of Sir Richard Calmady, of course," she said.

Her companion did not answer immediately. His eyes
pursued a receding carriage far down the string, amid the gaily
shifting sunshine and shadow, and the fluttering lace and gray
feathers of a woman's bonnet. When he spoke, at last, it
was with an unusual trace of feeling.

^' After all, you know, there are a good many excuses for
Richard Calmady."

" If it comes to that there are a good many excuses for
Helen de Vallorbes," Honoria put in quickly.

" For? For ? " the young man repeated, relaxing into the
bJandest of smiles. " Yes, thanks — I see I was right. It was
unnecessary to name names. — Oh ! undoubtedly, innumerable
excuses, and of the most valid description, were they needed
— were they not swallowed up in the single, self-evident excuse
that the lady you mention is a supremely clever and captiva-
ting person."

^lYou think so ? " said Honoria.

"Think so ? Show me the man so indiflTerent to his repu-
tation for taste that he could venture to think otherwise ! "

" Still she should have left him alone." — Honoria's indolent,
reflective speech took on a peculiar intonation, and she pressed
her long-fingered hands together, as though controlling a
shudder. " I — Pm ashamed to confess it, I do not like him.
But, as I told you, just on that account "

"Pardon me, on what account ? "

Miss St. Quentin was quick to resent impertinence, and
now momentarily anger struggled with her natural sincerity.
But the latter conquered. Again she forgave Mr. Quayle.
But a dull flush spread itself over her pale skin, and he per-
ceived that she was distinctly moved. This piqued his curi-
osity.

^^ I know I'm awfully foolish about some things," she said.
" I can't bear to speak of them. I dread seeing them. The
sight of them takes the warmth out of the sunshine."

Again Ludovic fell to nursing his knee. — What an amazing

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 323

invention is the feminine mind ! What endless entertainment
is derivable from striving to follow its tergiversations !

" And you saw that which takes the warmth out of the sun-
shine just now ? " he said. " Ah ! well — alas, for Dickie
Calmady ! "

" Still I can't bear any one not to play fair. You should
only hit a man your own size. I told Helen de Vallorbes
so. Pm very, very fond of her, but she ought to have spared
him." — She paused a moment. " All the same if I had not
promised Lady Aldham to stay on — as she's so poorly — I
should have gone out of town when I found the Calmadys had
come up."

" Oh ! it goes as far as that, does it ? " Ludovic murmured.

*' I don't like to see them with all these people. The ex-
tent to which he is petted and fooled becomes rather horrible."

" Are you not slightly — I ask it with all due deference and
humility — just slightly merciless ? "

"No, no," the girl answered earnestly. "I don't think
I'm that. The women who run after him, and flatter him so
outrageously, are really more merciless than I am. I do not
pretend to like him — I can't like him, somehow. But I'm
growing most tremendously sorry for him. And still more
sorry for his mother. She was very grand — a person altogether
satisfying to one's imagination and sense of fitness, at home,
with that noble house and park and racing stable for setting.
But here, she is shorn of her glory somehow."

The girl rose to her feet with lazy grace.

"She is cheapened. And that's a pity. There are more
than enough pretty cheap people among us already. — I must
go. There's Sir Reginald looking for me. — If I could be sure
Lady Calmady hated it all I should be more reconciled."

" Possibly she does hate it all, only that it presents itself as
the least of two evils."

"There is a touch of dancing dogs about it, and that dis-
tresses me," Miss St. Quentin continued. " It is Lady
Calmady's role to be apart, separate from and superior to the
rest."

"The thing's being done as well as it can be," Mr. Quayie
put in mildly.

" It shouldn't be done at all," the girl declared.—" Here I
am, Sir Reginald. You want to go on ? I'm quite ready."

324 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH KATHERINE TRIES TO NAIL UP THE WEATHER-
GLASS TO SET FAIR

TT is to, be feared that intimate acquaintance with Lady
Calmady's present attitude of mind would not have proved
altogether satisfactory to that ardent idealist Honoria St.
Ouentin. For, unquestionably, as the busy weeks of the
London season went forward, Katherine grew increasingly far
from "hating it all." At first she had found the varied inter-
ests and persons presented to her, the rapid interchange
of thought, the constant movement of society, slightly
bewildering. But, as Julius March had foretold, old habits
reasserted themselves. The great world, and the ways of it,
had been familiar to her in her youth. She soon found her-
self walking in its ways again with ease, and speaking its
language with fluency. And this, though in itself of but small
moment to her, procured her, indirectly, a happiness as greatly
desired as it had been little anticipated.

For to Richard the great world was, as yet, something of an
undiscovered country. Going forth into it he felt shy and
diffident, though a lively curiosity possessed him. The gentler
and more modest elements of his nature came into play. He
was sensible of his own Inexperience, and turned with
instinctive trust and tender respect to her in whom experience
was not lacking. He had never, so he told himself, quite
understood how fine a lady his mother was, how conspicuous
was her charm and distinguished her intelligence. And he
clung to her, grown man though he was, even as a child,
entering a bright room full of guests, clings to its mother's
hand, finding therein much comfort of encouragement and
support. He desired she should share all his interests, reck-
oning nothing worth the doing in which she had not a part.
He consulted her before each undertaking, talked and laughed
over it with her in private afterwards, thereby unconsciously

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 325

securing to her halcyon days, a honeymoon of the heart of
infinite sweetness, so that she, on her part, thanked God and
took courage.

And, indeed, it might very well appear to Katherine that
her heroic remedy was on the road to work an effectual cure.
The terror of lawless passion and of evil, provoked by that
fair woman clothed as with the sea waves, crov/ned and shod
with gold, whom she had withstood so manfully in spirit in
the wild autumn night, departed from her. She began to fear
no more. For surely her son was wholly given back to her —
his heart still free, his life still innocent ? And, not only did
this terror depart, but her anguish at his deformity was strangely
lessened, the pain of it lulled as by the action of an anodyne.
For, witnessing the young man's popularity, seeing him so
universally courted and welcomed, observing his manifest
power of attraction, she began to ask herself whether she had
not exaggerated the misfortune of that same deformity and the
impediment that it offered to his career and chances of per-
sonal happiness. She had been morbid, hypersensitive. The
world evidently saw in his disfigurement no such horror and
hopeless bar to success as she had seen. It was therefore a
dear world, a world rich in consolation and promise. It smiled
upon Richard, and so she smiled upon it, gratefully, trustfully,
finding in the plenitude of her thankfulness no wares save
honest ones set out for sale in the booths of Vanity Fair. A
large hopefulness arose in her. She began to form projects
calculated, as she believed, to perpetuate the gladness of the
present.

Among other tender customs of Richard's boyhood into
which Katherine, at this happy period, drifted back was that
of going, now and again, to his room at night, and gossiping
with him, for a merry, yet somewhat pathetic half-hour, be-
fore herself retiring to rest. It fell out that, towards the mid-
dle of June, there had been a dinner party at the Barkings on
a scale of magnificence unusual even in that opulent house.
It vi^as not the second, or even the third, time Richard and
his mother had dined in Albert Gate. For Lady Louisa had
proved the most assiduously attentive of neighbours. Little
Lady Constance Quayle was with her. The young girl had
brightened notably of late. Her prettiness was enhanced by
a timid and appealing playfulness. She had been seized.

326 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

moreover, with one of those innocent and absorbing devotions
towards Lady Calmady, that young girls often entertain to-
wards an elder woman, following her about with a sort of
dog-like fidelity, and watching her with eyes full of wistful
admiration. On the present occasion the guests at the Bark-
ing dinner had been politicians of distinction — members of
the then existing government. A contingent of foreign
diplomatists from the various embassies had been present, to-
gether with various notably smart women. Later there had
been a reception, largely attended, and music, the finest that
Europe could produce and money could buy.

*"' Louisa climbs giddy heights," Mr. Quayle had said to
himself, with an attempt at irony. But, in point of fact, he
was far from displeased, for it appeared to him the house of
Barking showed to uncommon advantage to-night. " Louisa
has no staying power in conversation, and her voice is too
loud, but in suippets she is rather impressive," he added.
" And, oh ! how very diligent is Louisa ! "

Driving home, Richard kept silence until just as the
brougham drew up, then he said abruptly : —
. " Tired ? No — that's right. Then come and sit with me.
1 want to talk. I haven't an ounce of sleep in me somehow
to-night."

It was hot, and when, some three-quarters of an hour later,
Katherine entered the big bedroom on the ground floor, the
upper sashes of the window were drawn low behind the
blinds, letting in the muffled roar of the great city as an under-
tone to the intermittent sound of footsteps, or the occasional
passing of a belated carriage or cab. It formed an undertone,
also, to Richard's memory of the music to which he had lately
listened, and the delight of which was still in his ears and puls-
ing in his blood, making his blue eyes bright and dark and
curving his handsome lips into a very eloquent smile as he lay
back against the piled-up pillows of the bed.

" Good heavens, how divinely Morabita sang," he said,
looking up at his mother as she stood looking down on him,
" better even than in Faust last night ! I want to hear her
again just as often as I can. Fler voice carries one right
away, out of oneself, into regions of pure and unmitigated
romance. All things are possible for the moment. One be-
comes as the gods, omnipotent. We've got the box as usual

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 327

on Saturday, mother, haven't we ? Do you remember if she
sings? "

Katherine replied that the great soprano did sing.

" Tm glad," Richard said ; " and yet I don't know that it's
particularly wholesome to hear her. After being as the gods,
one descends with rather too much of a run to the level of
the ordinary mortal." — He turned on his elbow restlessly, and
the movement altered the lie of the bedclothes, thereby dis-
closing the unsightly disproportion of his person through the
light blanket and sheet. " And if one's own level happens
unfortunately to be below that of even the ordinary mortal —
well — well — don't you know "

" My dear ! " Katherine put in softly.

Richard lay straight on his back again, and held out his
hand to her.

"Sit down, do," he said. "Turn the big chair round so
that I may see you. I like you in that frilly, white dressing-
gown thing. Don't be afraid, I'm not going to be a brute and
grumble. You're much too good to me, and I know I am
disgustingly selfish at times. I was this winter, but "

" The past is past," Katherine put in again very softly.

" Yes, please God, it is," he said, — " in some ways." — He
paused, and then spoke as though with an effort returning
from some far distance of thought : — " Yes, I like you in that
white, frilly thing. But I liked that new, black gown of yours
to-night too. You looked glorious, do you mind my saying
so ? And no woman walks as well as you do. I compared,
I watched. There's nothing more beautiful than seeing a
woman walk really well — or a man either, for that matter."

Then he caught at her hand again, laughing a little. — " No,
I'm not going to grumble," he said. " Upon my word,
mother, I swear I'm not. Here let's talk about your gowns.
I should like to know, shall you never wear anything but gray
or black ? "

" Never, not even to please you, Dickie."

" Ah, that's so delicious with you ! " he exclaimed. " Every
now and then you bring one up short, one knocks one's head
against a stone wall ! There is an indomitable strain in you.
I only hope you've transmitted it to me. I'm afraid I need
stifening. — I beg your pardon," he added quickly and courte-
ously, " it strikes me I am becoming slightly impertinent^

328 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

But that woman's voice has turned my brain and loosed tne
string of my tongue so that I speak words of unwisdom. You
enjoyed her singing too, though, didn't you ? I thought so,
catching sight of you while it was going on, attended by the
faithful Ludovic and little Lady Constance. It's quite touch-
ing to see how she worships you. And wasn't Miss St.
Quentin with you too ? Yes, I thought so. I can't quite
make up my mind about Honoria St. Quentin. Sometimes
she strikes me as one of the loveliest women here — and she
can walk, if you like, it's a joy to see her. And then again,
she seems to me altogether too long, and off-hand somehow^
and boyish ! And then, too," — Richard moved his head
against the white pillows, and stared up at the window, where
the blind sucked, with small creaking noises, against the top
edge of the open sash, — " she fights shy of me, and personal
feeling militates against admiration, you know. I am sorry,
for I rather want to talk to her about — oh, well, a whole lot
of things. But she avoids me. I never get the opportunity."
'' My darling, don't you think that is partly imagination ? "
" Perhaps it is," he answered. " I dare say I do indulge in
unnecessary fancies about people's manner and so on. I can't
vety well be off it, you know. And every one is really very
kind to me. Morabita was perfectly charming when I
thanked her in very floundering Italian. It's a pity she's so
fat. But, never mind, the fat vanishes, to all intents and
purposes, when she begins to sing. And old Barking is as
kmd as he can be. I fee! av/fully obliged to him, though his
ministrations to-night amounted to being slightly embarrassing.
He brought me cabinet ministers and under-secretaries, and
gorgeous Germans and Turks, in batches — and even a real
live Chinaman with a pig-tail. Mother, do you remember the
cabinets at home in the Long Gallery ? I used to dream
about them. And that Chinaman gave me the queerest feeU
ing to-night. It was idiotic, but — did I ever tell you — when
I was a little chap, I was always dreaming about war or some-
thing, from which I couldn't get away. Others could, but
for me — from circumstances, don't you know — there was nc
possibility of scuttling. And the little Chinese figures on the
black, lacquer cabinets were mixed up with it. As I say, 'i\

gripped me to-night in the midst of alt those people and

Oh yes ! old Barking is very kind,^*^' he went on, with a change

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 329

of tone. '^ Only I wish Lady Louisa would warn him he
need not trouble himself to be amusing. He came and sat by
me, towards the end of the evening, and told me the most
inane stories in that inflated manner of his. Verily, they were
ancient as the hills, and a weariness to the spirit. But that
good-looking, young fellow, Decies, swallowed them all down
with the devoutest attention and laughed aloud in all that he
conceived to be the right places."

A pause came in Richard's flow of words. He moved
again restlessly and clasped his hands under his head. Kath-
erine had seldom seen him thus excited and feverish. A
sense of alarm grew on her, lest her heroic remedy was, after
all, not working a wholly satisfactory cure. P^or there was a
violence in his utterance, and in his face, a certain reckless-
ness of speech and of demeanour, very agitating to her.

" Oh, every one's kind, awfully kind," he repeated, looking
away at the sucking blind again, "and I'm awfully grateful to

them, but Oh ! I tell you, that woman's voice has got

me and made me drunk, made me mad drunk. I almost wish
I had never heard her. I think I won't go to the opera again.
Emotion that finds no outlet in action only demoralises one
and breaks up one's philosophy, and she makes me know all
that might be, and is not, and never, never can be. Good God !
what a glorious, what an amazing, business I could have made
of life if " He slipped a little on the pillows, had to un-
clasp his hands hastily and press them down on either side
him, to keep his body fairly upright in the bed. His features
contracted with a spasm of anger. "If I had only had the
average chance," he added harshly. " If I had only started
with the normal equipment."

And, as she listened, the old anguish, lately lulled to rest in
Katherine's heart, arose and cried aloud. But she sought
resolutely to stifle its crying, strong in faith and hope.

" I know, my dearest, I know," she said pleadingly. " And
y€t,,since we have been here, I have thought perhaps we had
2. little underrated both your happy gift of pleasing and the
readiness of others to be pleased. It seems to me, Dickie, all
doors open if you stretch out your hand. Well, my dear, I
Would have you go forward fearlessly. I would have you more
ambitious, more self-confident. I see and deplore my own
^«owardly mistake. Instead of hiding you away at home, and

330 SIR RICHARD CALMADY ,

keeping you to myself, I ought to have encouraged you to
mix in the world and fill the position to which both your
powers and your birth entitle you. I was wrong — I lament
my folly. But there is ample time in which to rectify my
mistake."

Richard's face relaxed.

" I wonder — I wonder," he said.

" I am sure," she replied.

"You are too sanguine," he said. "Your love for me
blinds you to fact."

" No, no," she replied again. " Love is the only medium
in which vision gains perfect clearness, becomes trustworthy
and undistorted." — Instinctively Katherine folded her hands
as in prayer, while the brightness of a pure enthusiasm shone
in her sweet eyes. " That Ihave learned beyond all possibil-
ity of dispute. It has been given me, through much tribula-
tion, to arrive at that."

Richard smiled upon her tenderly, then, turning his head^
remained silent for a while. The sullen roar of the great city
invaded the quiet room through the open windows, the heavy
regular tread of a policeman on his beat, a shrill whistle hail-
ing a hansom from a house some few doors distant up the
square, and then an answering rumble of wheels and clatter
of hoofs. Richard's face had grown fierce again, and hi»
breath came quick. He turned on his side, and once more
the dwarfed proportions of his person became perceptible..
Lady Calmady averted her eyes, fixing them upon his. But
even there she found sad lack of comfort, for in them she read
the inalienable distress and desolation of one unhandsomely
treated by Nature, maimed and incomplete. Even the Divine
Light, resident within her, failed to reconcile her to that read-
ing. She shrank back in protest, once again, against the deal-
ing of Almighty God with this only child of hers. And yet
— such is the adorable paradox of a living faith — even while
shrinking, while protesting, she flung herself for support, for
help, upon the very Being who had permitted, in a sense
caused, her misery.

" Mother can I say something to you ? " Richard asked^
rather hoarsely, at last. n

"Anything — in heaven or earth."

" But it is a thing ngt usually spoken of as I want to speak

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 331

of it. It may seem indecent. You won't be disgusted, or
think me wanting in respect or in modesty ? "

" Surely not," Lady Calmady answered quietly, yet a certain
trembling took her, a nervousness as in face of the unknown.
This strong, young creature developed forces, presented as-
pects, in his present feverish mood, with which she felt hardly
equal to cope.

" Mother, I — I want to marry."

"I, too, have thought of that," she said.

*' You don't consider that I am debarred from marriage ? '*

" Oh, no, no ! " Katherine cried, a little sob in her voice.

He looked at her steadily, with those profoundly desolate
eyes.

" It would not be wrong ? It would not be otherwise than
honourable ? " he asked.

If doubts arose within Katherine of the answer to that
question, she crushed them down passionately.

" No, my dearest, no," she declared. " It would not be
wrong — it could not, could not be so — if she loved you, and
you loved whomsoever you married."

" But I'm not in love — at least not in love with any person
who can become my wife. Yet that does not seem to me to
matter very much. I should be faithful, no fear, to any one
who was good enough to marry me. Enough of love would
come, if only out of gratitude, towards the woman who would
accept me as — as I am — and forgive that — that which cannot
be helped."

Again trembling shook Katherine. So terribly much
:scemed to her at stake just then ! Silently she implored wis-
dom and clear-seeing might be accorded her. She leaned a
little forward, and taking his left hand held it closely in both
(hers.

" Dearest, that is not all. Tell me all," she said, " or I
•cannot quite follow your thought."

Richard flung his body sideways across the bed, and kissed
her hands as they held his. The hot colour rushed ovfr his
face and neck, up to the roots of his close-cropped, curly :hair.
He spoke, lying thus upon his chest, his face half buried in
the sheet.

"I want to marry because — because I want a child — I
want a son," he said.

332 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

No words came to Katherine just then. But she disen-
gaged one hand and laid it upon the dear brown head, and
waited in silence until the violence of the young man's emo-
tion had spent itself, until the broad, muscular shoulders had
ceased to heave and the strong, young hands to grasp her
wrist. Suddenly Richard recovered himself, sat up, rubbing;
his hands across his eyes, laughing, but with a queer catch in
his voice.

" I beg your pardon," he said. " Pm a fool, an awful fooL
Hang Morabita and her voice and the golden houses of the
gods, and beastly, showy omnipotence to which her voice
carries one away ! To talk sense — mother — ^just brutal com-
mon sense. My fate is fixed, you know. There's no earthly
use in wriggling. I am condemned to live a cow's life and
die a cow's death. The pride of life may call, but I can't
answer. The great prizes are not for me. I'm too heavily
handicapped. I was looking at that young fellow, Decies, to-
night and considering his chances as against my own

Oh ! I know there's wealth in plenty. The pasture's green
enough to make many a man covet it, and the stall's well
bedded-down. I don't complain. Only mother, you know
— I know. Where's the use of denying that which we
neither of us ever really forget ? — And then sometimes my
blood takes fire. It did to-night. And the splendour of living
being denied me, I — I — am tempted to say a Black Mass.
One must take it out somehow. And I know I could go ta
the devil as few men have ever gone, magnificently, detest-
ably, with subtleties and refinements of iniquity."

He laughed again a little. And, hearing him, his mother's
heart stood still.

"Verily, I have advantages," he continued. "There
should be a picturesqueness in my descent to hell which would
go far to place my name at the head of the list of those sinners
who have achieved immortality "

" Richard ! Richard ! " Lady Calmady cried, " do you want
to break my heart quite ? " -;i<

"No," he answered, simply. "I'd infinitely rather not
break your heart. I have no ambition to see my name in that
devil's list except as an uncommonly ironical sort of second
best. But then we must make some change, some radical
change. At times, lately, I've felt as if I was a caged wild

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 333

beast — blinded, its claws cut, the bars of its cage soldered and
riveted, no hope of escape, and yet the vigour, the immense
longing for freedom and activity, there all the u^hile."

Richard stretched himself.

''' Poor beast, poor beast, poor beast ! " he said, shaking his
head and smiling. " I tell you I get absurdly sentimental over
it at times."

And then, happily, there came a momentary lapse in the
entirety of his egoism. He turned on his side and took Lady
Calmady's hand again, and fell to playing absently with her
bracelets.

^'You poor darling, how I torture you," he said. "And
yet, now we've once broken the ice and begun talking of all
this, we're bound to talk on to the finish — if finish there is.
You see these few weeks in London — I've enjoyed them — but
still they've made me understand, more than ever, all I've
missed. Life calls, mother, do you see ? And though the
beast is blind, and his claws are cut, and his cage bolted, yet,
when life calls, he must answer — must — or run mad — or die
— do you see ? "

" And you shall answer, my beloved. Never fear, you will
answer," Katherine replied proudly.

Richard's hand closed hard upon hers.

" Thank you," he said. " You were made to be a mother
of heroes, not of a useless log like me. — And that's just why
i want to be good. And to be good I want a wife, that I may
have that boy. I could keep straight for him, mother, though
I'm afraid I can't keep straight for myself, and simply because
it's right, much longer. I want him to have just all that I am
denied. I want him to restore the balance, both for you and
for me. I may have something of a career myself, perhaps,
in politics or something. It's possible, but that will come
later, if it comes at all. And then it would be for his sake.
What I want first is the boy, to give me an object and keep
up my pluck, and keep me steady. I, giving him life, shall
find my life in him, be paid for my wretched circumscribed
•existence by his goodly and complete one. He may be clever
or not — I'd rather, of course, he was not quite a dunce — but I
really don't very much mind, so long as he isn't an outrageous
fool, if he's only an entirely sound and healthy human
animaL"

334 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Richard stretched himself upon the bed, straightened the
sheet across his chest, and clasped his hands under his head
again. The desolation had gone out of his eyes. He seemed
to look afar into the future, and therein see manly satisfaction
and content. His voice was vibrant, rising to a kind of
chant.

" He shall run, and he shall swim, he shall fence, and he
shall row," he said. " He shall learn all gallant sports, as be-
comes an English gentleman. And he shall ride, — not as I
ride, God forbid ! like a monkey strapped on a dog at a fair,
but as a centaur, as a young demigod. We will set him,
stark naked, on a bare-backed horse, and see that he's clean-
limbed, perfect, without spot or blemish, from head to heel."

And once more Katherine Calmady held her peace, some-
what amazed, somewhat tremulous, since it seemed to her the
young man was drawing a cheque upon the future which
might, only too probably, be dishonoured and returned marked
no account. For who dare say that this child would ever
come to the birth, or coming, what form it would bear ? Yet,
even so, she rejoiced in her son and the high spirit he dis-
played, while the instinct of romance which inspired his
speech touched an answering chord in, and uplifted, her.

By now the brief June night was nearly spent. The blind
still creaked against the open window sash, but the thud of
horse-hoofs and beat of passing footsteps had become infre--*
quent, while the roar of the mighty city bad dwindled to a
murmur, as of an ebbing tide upon a shallow, sand-strewn
beach. The after-light of the sunset, walking the horizon,
beneath the Pole star from west to east, broadened upward
now towards the zenith. Even here, in the heart of London,
the day broke with a spacious solemnity. Richard raised him-
self, and, sitting up, blew out the candles placed on the table
at the bedside.

" Mother," he said, " will you let in the morning ? "

Lady Calmady was pale from her long vigil, and her un-
spoken, yet searching, emotion. She appeared very tall,
ghostlike even, in her soft, white raiment, as she moved across
and drew up the sucking blind. Above the gray parapets of
the houses, and the ranks of contorted chimney-pots, the love-
liness of the summer dawn grew wide. Warm amber shaded
ihrough gradations of exquisite and nameless colour into blue.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 335

While, across this last, lay horizontal lines of fringed, semi-
transparent, opalescent cloud. To Katherine those heavenly
blue interspaces spoke of peace, of the stilling of all strife,
when the tragic, yet superb, human story should at last be
fully told and God be all in all. She was very tired. The
struggle was so prolonged. Her soul cried out for rest. And
then she reminded herself, almost sternly, that the kingdom
of God and the peace of it is no matter of time or of place,
but is within the devout believer, ever present, immediate,
possessing his or her soul, and by that soul in turn possessed.
Just then the sparrows, roosting in the garden of the square,
awoke with manifold and vociferous chirping and chattering.
The voice from the bed called to her.

" Mother," it said imperatively, " come to me. You are
not angry at what I have told you ? You understand ? You
will find her for me ? "

Lady Calmady turned away from the open window and the
loveliness of the summer dawn. She was less tired some-
how. God was with her, so she could not be otherwise than
hopeful. Moreover, the world had proved itself very kind
towards her son. It would not deny him this last request,
surely ?

" My dearest, I think I have found her already," Lady
Galmady answered.

Yet, even as she spoke, she faltered a little, recognising the
energy and strength manifest in the young man's countenance,
remembering his late discourse, and the pent-up fires of his
nature to which that discourse had borne only too eloquent
testimony. For who was a young girl, but just out of the
schoolroom, a girl in pretty, fresh frocks — the last word of
contemporary fashion, — whose baby face and slow, wide-eyed
gaze bore witness to her entire innocence of the great primi-
tive necessities, the rather brutal joys, the intimate vices, the
far-ranging intellectual questionings which rule and mould the
action of mankind, — who was she, indeed, to cope with a na-
ture such as Richard's ?

" Mother, tell me, who is it ? "

And instinctively Katherine fell to pleading.. She sat down
beside the bed again and smoothed the sheet.

" You will be tender and loving to her, Dickie ? " she said.
*' For she is young and very gentle* and might easily be made

336 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

afraid. You will not forget what is due to your wife, to yout
bride, in your longing for a child?"

" Who is it ? " Richard demanded again.

" Ludovic's sister — little Lady Constance Quayle."

He drew in his breath sharply.

" Would she — would her people consent ? " he said.

" I think so. Judging by appearances, I am almost sure
they would consent."

A long silence followed. Richard lay still, looking at the
rosy flush that broadened in the morning sky and touched the
bosoms of those deHcate clouds with living, pulsating coloujr.
And he flushed too, all his being softened into a great tender--
ness, a great shyness, a quick yet noble shame. For his whole
attitude towards this question of marriage changed strangely as
it passed from the abstract, from regions of vague purpose and
desire, to the concrete, to the thought of a maiden with name
and local habitation, a maiden actual and accessible, whose
image he could recall, whose pretty looks and guileless speech
he knew.

"I almost wish she was not Ludovic's sister, though," he
remarked presently. " It is a great deal to ask."

" You have a great deal to offer," Katherine said, adding :
*' You can care for her, Dickie ? "

He turned his head, his lips working a little, his flushed face
very young and bright.

" Oh yes ! I can care fast enough," he said. " And I think
— I think I could make her happy. And you see, already
she worships you. We would pet her, mother, and give her
all manner of pretty things, and make a little queen of her—
and she would be pleased — she's a child, such a child."

Richard remained awake far into the morning, till the rose
had died out of the sky, and the ascending smoke of many
kitchen-chimneys began to stain the expanse of heavenly blue.
The thought of his possible bride was very sweet to him. But
when at last sleep came, dreams came likewise. Helen de
Vallorbes' perfect face arose, in reproach, before him, and her
azure and purple draperies swept over him, stifling and choking
him as the salt waves of an angry sea. Then some one — it was
the comely, long-limbed young soldier, Mr. Decies — whom he
had seen last night at the Barkings' great party when Morabita
sang — and the soprano's matchless voice was mixed up, in the

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 337

strangest fashion, with all these transactions — lifted Helen and
all her magic sea-waves from ofF him, setting him free. But
even as he did so, Dickie perceived that it was not Helen,
after all, whom the young soldier carried in his arms, but
little Lady Constance Quayle. Whereupon Richard, waking
with a start, conceived a wholly unreasoning detestation
of Mr. Decies, while, along with that, his purpose of mar-
rying Lady Constance increased notably, waxed strong and
grew, putting forth all manner of fair flowers of promise and
of hope.

CHAPTER IV

A LESSON UPON THE ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT "PARENTS

OBEY YOUR CHILDREN "

A FAMILY council was in course of holding in the lofty,
white-and-gold boudoir, overlooking the Park, in Albert
Gate. Lady Louisa Barking had summoned it. She had also
exercised a measure of selection among intending members.
For instance Lady Margaret and Lady Emily, — the former
having a disposition, in the opinion of her elder sister, to
put herself forward and support the good cause with more
zeal than discretion, the latter being but a weak-kneed sup-
porter of the cause at best, — were summarily dismissed.

" It was really perfectly unnecessary to discuss this sort of
thing before the younger girls," she said. "It put them out
of their place and rather rubbed the freshness off their minds.
And then they would chatter among themselves. And it all
became a little foolish and missy. They never knew when
to stop."

One member of the Quayle family, and that a leading one,
had taken his dismissal before it was given and, with a nice
mixture of defective moral-courage and good common-sense,
had removed himself bodily from the neighbourhood of the
scene of action. Lord Shotover was still in London. Along
with the payment of his debts had come a remarkable increase
of cheerfulness. He made no more allusions to the unpleas-
ant subject of cutting his throat, while the proposed foreign

338 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

tour had been relegated to a vague future. It seemed a pitjr
not to see the season out. It would be little short of a crime
to miss Goodwood. He might go out with Decies to India in
the autumn, when that young soldier's leave had expired, and
look Guy up a bit. He would rather like a turn at pig-stick-
ing— and there were plenty of pig, he understood, in the
neighbourhood of Agra, where his brother was now stationed.
On the morning in question. Lord Shotover, in excellent
spirits, had walked down Piccadilly with his father, from his
rooms in Jermyn Street to Albert Gate. The elder gentleman,
arriving from Westchurch by an early train, had solaced him-
self with a share of the by no means ascetic breakfast of
which his eldest son was partaking at a little after half-past
ten. It was very much too good a breakfast for a person in
Lord Shotover's existing financial positipn — so indeed were
the rooms — so, in respect of locality, was Jermyn Street itselL
Lord Fallowfeild knew this, no man better. Yet he was
genuinely pleased, impressed even, by the luxury with which
his erring son was surrounded, and proceeded to praise
his cook, praise his valet's waiting at table, praise some fine
old sporting prints upon the wall. He went so far, indeed, as
to chuckle discreetly — immaculately faithful husband though
he was — over certain photographs of ladies, more fair and
kind than wise, which were stuck in the frame of the looking-
glass over the chimneypiece. In return for which acts of
good-fellowship Lord Shotover accompanied him as far as the
steps of the mansion in Albert Gate. There he paused, re-
marking with the most disarming frankness : —

" I would come in. I want to awfully, I assure you. I
quite agree with you about all this affair, you know, and I
should uncommonly like to let the others know it. But, between
ourselves, Louisa's been so short with me lately, so infernally
short — if you'll pardon my saying so — that it's become down-
right disagreeable to me to run across her. So I'm afraid I
might only make matters worse all round, don't you know, if I
put in an appearance this morning."

" Has she, though ? " ejaculated Lord Fallowfeild, in ref-
erence presumably to his eldest daughter's reported shortness*
" My dear boy, don't think of it. I wouldn't have you exposed
to unnecessary unpleasantness on any account."

Then, as he followed the groom-of-the-chambers up the

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 339

bare, white, marble staircase — which struck almost vaultlike in
its chill and silence, after the heat and glare and turmoil of the
great thoroughfare without — he added to himself: —

" Good fellow, Shotover. Has his faults, but upon my
word, when you come to think of it, so have all of us. Very
good-hearted, sensible fellow at bottom, Shotover. Always
responds when you talk rationally to him. No nonsense about
him." — His lordship sighed as he climbed the marble stair.
*' Great comfort to me at times Shotover. Shows very proper
feeling on the present occasion, but naturally feels a diffidence
about expressing it."

Thus, in the end, it happened that the family council con-
sisted only of the lady of the house, her sister Lady Alicia
Winterbotham, Mr. Ludovic Quayle, and the parent whom
all three of them were, each in their several ways, so perfectly
willing to instruct in his duty towards his children.

Ludovic, perhaps, displayed less alacrity than usual in offer-
ing good advice to his father. His policy was rather that of
masterly inactivity. Indeed, as the discussion waxed hot — his
sisters' voices rising slightly in tone, while Lord Fallowfeild's
replies disclosed a vein of dogged obstinacy — he withdrew from
the field of battle and moved slowly round the room staring
abstractedly at the pictures. There was a seductive, female
head by Greuze, a couple of reposeful landscapes by Morland, a
little Constable — waterways, trees, and distant woodland, swept
by wind and weather. But upon these the young man bestowed
scant attention. That which fascinated his gaze was a series
of half-length portraits in oval frames, representing his parents,
himself, his sisters, and brothers. These portraits were the
work of a lady whose artistic gifts, and whose prices, were
alike modest. They were in coloured chalks, and had, after
adorning her own sitting-room for a number of years, been
given, as a wedding present, by Lady f'allowfeild to her eldest
daughter. Mr. Quayle reviewed them leisurely now, looking
over his shoulder now and again to note how the tide of bat-
tle rolled, and raising his eyebrows in mute protest when the
voices of the two ladies became more than usually elevated.

" You see, papa, you have not been here " — Lady Louisa
was saying.

" No, I haven't," interrupted Lord f^allowfeild. "And very
much I regrei *b*itt I Ha*'*?u't. Should have done my best to

340 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

put a stop to this engagement at the outset — before there was
any engagement at all, in fact."

" And so you cannot possibly know how the whole thing —
any breaking ofF I mean — would be regarded."

" Can't I, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild. " I know per-
fectly well how I should regard it myself."

"You do not take the advantages sufficiently into consider-
ation, papa. Of course with their enormous wealth they can
afford to do anything." — Mr. Winterbotham's income was far
from princely at this period, and Lady Alicia was liable to be
at once envious of, and injured by, the riches of others. Her
wardrobe was limited. She was, this morning, vexatiously
conscious of a warmer hue in the back pleats than in the front
breadth of her mauve, cashmere dress, sparsely decorated with
bows of but indifferently white ribbon. " It has enabled them
to make an immense success. One really gets rather tired of
hearing about them. But everybody goes to their house, you
know, and says that he is perfectly charming."

" Half the parents in London would jump at the chance of
one of their girls making such a marriage," — this from Lady
Louisa.

Mr. Quayle looked over his shoulder and registered a con-
viction that his father did not belong to that active, parental
moiety. He sat stubbornly on a straight-backed, white-and-
gold chair, his hands clasped on the top of his favourite, gold-
headed walking-stick. He had refused to part with this
weapon on entering the house. It gave him a sense of au-
thority, of security. Meanwhile his habitually placid and in-
fantile countenance wore an expression of the acutest worry.

"Would they, though ? " he said, in response to his daugh-
ter's information regarding the jumping moiety. — "Well, I
shouldn't. In point of fact, I don't. All that you and Alicia
tell me may be perfectly true, my dear Louisa. I would not,
for a moment, attempt to discredit your statements. And I don't
wish to be intemperate. — Stupid thing intemperance, sign of
weakness, intemperance. — Still I must repeat, and I do repeat,
I repeat clearly, that I do not approve of this engagement."

"Did not I prophesy long, long ago what my father's atti-
tude would be, Louisa? " Mr. Quayle murmured gently, over
his shoulder.

Then he fell to contemplating the portrdt of his brothe/

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 341

Guy, aged seven, who was represented arrayed in a brown*
hoUand blouse of singular formlessness confined at the waist
by a black leather belt, and carrying, cupid-like, in his hands
a bow and arrows decorated with sky-blue ribbons. — '' Were
my brothers and I actually such appallingly insipid-looking little
idiots? " he asked himself. " In that case the years do bring
compensations. We really bear fewer outward traces of utter
imbecility now."

" I don't wish to be harsh with you, my dears — never have
been harsh, to my knowledge, with any one of my children.
Believe in kindness. Always have been lenient with my chil-
dren "

''And as indirect consequence thereof note my eldest
brother's frequent epistles to the Hebrews ! " commented Mr.
^uayle softly. "The sweet simplicity of this counterfeit
presentment of him, armed with a pea-green bait-tin and joint-
less fishing-rod, hardly shadows forth the copious insolvencies
of recent times ! "

" Never have approved of harshness," continued Lord Fal-
lowfeild. "Still I do feel I should have been given an oppor-
tunity of speaking my mind sooner. I ought to have been
referred to in the first place. It was my right. It was due
to me. i don't wish to assert my authority in a tyrannical
manner. Hate tyranny, always have hated parental tyranny.
Still I feel that it was due to me. And Shotover quite agrees
with me. Talked in a very nice, gentlemanly, high-minded
way about it all this morning, did Shotover."

The two ladies exchanged glances, drawing themselves up
with an assumption of reticence and severity.

" Really ! " exclaimed Lady Alicia. " It seems a pity, papa,
that Shotover's actions are not a little more in keeping with
his conversation, then."

But Lord Fallowfeild only grasped the head of his walking-
stick the tighter, congratulating himself the while on the un-
shakable firmness both of his mental and physical attitude.

" Oh ! ah ! yes," he said, rising to heights of quite reckless
defiance. "I know there is a great deal of prejudice against
Shotover, just now, among you. He alluded to it this morn-
ing with a great deal of feeling. He was not bitter, but he is
very much hurt, is Shotover. You are hard on him, Alicia.
It is a painful thing to observe upon, but you are hard, and

342 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

so is Winterbotham. I regret to be obliged to put h so
plainly, but I was displeased by Winterbotham*s tone about
your brother, last time you and he were down at Whitney from
Saturday to Monday."

" At all events, papa, George has never cost his parents a
single penny since he left Bailiol," Lady Alicia replied, with
some spirit and a very high colour.

But Lord Fallowfeild was not to be beguiled into discussion
of side issues, though his amiable face was crumpled and
puckered by the effort to present an uncompromising front to
the enemy.

"Some of you ought to have written and informed me as
soon as you had any suspicion of what was likely to happen.
Not to do so was underhand. I do not wish to employ strong
language, but I do consider it underhand. Shotover tells me
he would have written if he had only known. But, of course,
in the present state of feeling, he was shut out from it all.
Ludovic did know, I presume. And, I am sorry to say it, but I
consider it very unhandsome of Ludovic not to have commu-
nicated with me."

At this juncture Mr. Quayle desisted from contemplation of
the family portraits and approached the belligerents, threading
his way carefully between the many tables and chairs. There
was much furniture, yet but few ornaments, in Lady Louisa's
boudoir. The young man's long neck was directed slightly
forward and his expression was one of polite inquiry.

" It is very warm this morning," he remarked parenthetic-
ally, " and as a family we appear to feel it. You did me the
honour to refer to me just now, I believe, my dear father ?
Since my two younger sisters have been banished it has hap-
pily become possible to hear both you, and myself, speak. You
were saying ? "

" That you might very properly have written and told me
about this business, and given me an opportunity of express-
ing my opinion before things reached a head."

Mr. Quayle drew forward a chair and seated himself with
mild deliberation. Lord Fallowfeild began to fidget. "Very
clever fellow, Ludovic," he said to himself. " Wonderfully
cool head " — and he became suspicious of his own wisdom in
having made direct appeal to a person thus distinguished.

" I might have written, my dear father. I admit that I

, A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 343

might. But there were difficulties. To begin with, I — in this
particular — shared Shotover's position. Louisa had not seen
fit to honour me with her confidence. — I beg your pardon,
Louisa, you were saying ? — And so, you see, I really hadn't
anything to write about."

" But — but — this young man " — Lord Fallowfeild was sen-
sible of a singular reluctance to mention the name of his pro-
posed son-in-law — " this young Calmady, you know, he's an
intimate friend of yours "

^' Difficulty number two. For I doubted how you would
take the matter "

" Did you, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild, with an ap-
preciable smoothing of crumples and puckers.

" I'm extremely attached to Dickie Calmady. And I did
not want to put a spoke in his wheel."

"Of course not, my dear boy, of course not. Nasty un-
pleasant business putting spokes in other men's wheels,
specially when they're your friends. I acknowledge that."

" I am sure you do," Mr. Quayle replied, indulgently.
"You are always on the side of doing the generous thing, my
dear father, — when you see it."

Here his lordship's grasp upon the head of his walking-stick
relaxed sensibly.

" Thank you, Ludovic. Very pleasant thing to have one's
son say to one, I must say, uncommonly pleasant." — Alas !
he felt himself to be slipping, slipping. " Deuced shrewd,
diplomatic fellow, Ludovic," he remarked to himself some-
what ruefully. All the same, the little compliment warmed
him through. He knew it made for defeat, yet for the life of
him he could not but relish it. — " Very pleasant," he repeated.
" But that's not the point, my dear boy. Now, about this
young fellow Calmady's proposal for your sister Constance ? "

Mr. Quayle looked full at the speaker, and for once his ex-
pression held no hint of impertinence or raillery.

" Dickie Calmady is as fine a fellow as ever fought, or won,
an almost hopeless battle," he said. " He is somewhat heroic,
in my opinion. And he is very lovable."

" Is he, though ? " Lord Fallowfeild commented, quite gently.

" A woman who understood him, and had some idea of all
he must hai^e gone through, could not well help being very
proud of him."

344 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Yet, even while speaking, the young man knew his ad-
vocacy to be but half-hearted. He praised his friend rather
than his friend's contemplated marriage. — '■^ But his dear, old
lordship's not very quick. He'll never spot that," he added
mentally. And then he reflected that little Lady Constance
was not very quick either. She might marry obediently, even
gladly. But was it probable she would develop sufficient im-
agination ever to understand, and therefore be proud of, Rich-
ard Calmady ?

" He is brilliant too," Ludovic continued. " He is as well
read as any man of his standing whom I know, and he can
think for himself. And, when he is in the vein he is unusu-
ally good company."

'^ Everybody says he is extraordinarily agreeable," broke in
Lady Alicia. '' Old Lady Combmartin was saying only yes-
terday— George and I met her at the Aldhams', Louisa, you
know, at dinner — that she had not heard better conversation
for years. And she was brought up among Macaulay and
Rogers and all the Holland House set, so her opinion really is
worth having."

But Lord Fallowfeild's grasp had tightened again upon his
walking-stick.

''• Was she, though ? " he said rather incoherently.

^' Pray, from all this, don't run away with the notion
Calmady is a prig," Ludovic interposed. " He is as keen a
sportsman as you are — in as far, of course, as sport is possible
for him."

Here Lord Fallowfeild, finding himself somewhat hard
pressed, sought relief in movement. He turned sideways,
throwing one shapely leg across the other, grasping the sup-
porting walking-stick in his right hand, while with the left he
laid hold of the back of the white-and-gold chair.

" Oh ! ah ! yes," he said valiantly, directing his gaze upon
the tree-tops in the Park. " I quite accept all you tell me. I
don't want to detract from your friend's merits — poor, mean
sort of thing to detract from any man's friend's merits. Gen-
tlemanlike young fellow, Calmady, the little I have seen of
him — reminds me of my poor friend his father. I liked his
father. But, you see, my dear boy, there is — well, there's no
denying it, there is — and Shotover quite "

" Of course, papa, we all know what you mean," Lady

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 345

Louisa interposed, with a certain loftiness and, it must be
owned, asperity. " I have never pretended there was not
something one had to get accustomed to. But really you for-
get all about it almost immediately — every one does — one can
see that — don't they, Alicia ? If you had met Sir Richard
everywhere, as we have this season, you would realise how
very very soon that is quite forgotten/'

" Is it, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild somewhat incred-
ulously. His face had returned to a sadly puckered condition.

'^Yes, I assure you, nobody thinks of it, after just the first
little shock, don't you know," — this from Lady Louisa.

^' I think one feels it is not quite nice to dwell on a thing
of that kind," her sister chimed in, reddening again. " It
ought to be ignored." — From a girl, the speaker had enjoyed a
reputation for great refinement of mind.

" I think it amounts to being more than not nice," echoed
Lady Louisa. " I think it is positively wrong, for nobody can
tell what accident may not happen to any of us at any mo-
ment. And so I am not at all sure that it is not actually un-
christian to make a thing like that into a serious objection."

" You know, papa, there must be deformed people in some^
families, just as there is consumption or insanity."

" Or under-breeding, or attenuated salaries," Mr. Quayle
softly murmured. " It becomes evident, my dear father, you
must not expect too much of sons, or I of brothers-in-law."

*•' Think of old Lord Sokeington — I mean the great uncle
of the present man, of course — of his temper," Lady Louisa
proceeded, regardless of ironical comment. " It amounted
almost to mania. And yet Lady Dorothy Hellard would cer-
tainly have married him. There never was any questioa
about it."

" Would she, though ? Bad, old man, Sokeington. Never
did approve of Sokeington."

" Of course she would. Mrs. Crookenden, who always
has been devoted to her, told me so."

" Did she, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild. " But the
marriage was broken off, my dear."

He made this remark triumphantly, feeling it showed great
acuteness.

" Oh, dear no ! indeed it wasn't," his daughter replied-
" Lord Sokeington behaved in the most outrageous manner.

346 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

At the last moment he never proposed to her at all. And
then it came out that for years he had been living with one of
the still-room maids/'

" Louisa ! '' cried Lady Alicia, turning scarlet.

" Had he, though ? The old scoundrel ! "

" Papa/' cried Lady Alicia.

'' So he was, my dear. Very bad old man, Sokeington.
Very amusing old man too, though."

And, overcome by certain reminiscences, Lord Fallowfeild
chuckled a little, shamefacedly. His second daughter there-
upon arranged the folds of her mauve cashmere, with bent
head. — " It is very clear papa and Shotover have been together
to-day," she thought. " Shotover's influence over papa is
always demoralising. It's too extraordinary the subjects men
joke about and call amusing when they get together."

A pause followed, a brief cessation of hostilities, during
which Mr. Quayle looked inquiringly at his three companions.

" Alicia fancies herself shocked," he said to himself, " and
my father fancies himself wicked, and Louisa fancies herself
a chosen vessel. Strong delusion is upon them all. The only
question is whose delusion is the strongest, and who, conse-
quently, will first renew the fray ? Ah ! the chosen vessel !
I thought as much."

"You see, papa, one really must be practical," Lady
Louisa began in clear, emphatic tones. " We all know how
you have spoiled Constance. She and Shotover have always
been your favourites. But even you must admit that Shot-
over's wretched extravagance has impoverished you, and
helped to impoverish all your other children. And you must
also admit, notwithstanding your partiality for Constance,
that "

"I want to see Connie. I want to hear from herself that
she " — broke out Lord Fallowfeild. His kindly heart yearned
over this ewe-lamb of his large flock. But the eldest of the
said flock interposed sternly.

" No, no," she cried, " pray, papa, not yet. Connie is quite
contented and reasonable — I believe she is out shopping just
now, too. And while you are in this state of indecision your-
self, it would be the greatest mistake for you to see her. It
would only disturb and upset her — wouldn't it, Alicia? "

And the lady thus appealed to assented. It is true that

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 347

when she arrived at the great house in Albert Gate that morn-
ing she had found little Lady Constance with her pretty, baby^
face sadly marred by tears. But she had put that down to the
exigencies of the situation. All young ladies of refined mind
cried under kindred circumstances. Had she not herself wept
copiously, for the better part of a week, before finally deciding
to accept George Winterbotham ? Moreover, a point or
jealousy undoubtedly pricked Lady Alicia in this connection.V
She was far from being a cruel woman, but, comparing her
own modest material advantages in marriage with the sur-
prisingly handsome ones offered to her little sister, she could
not be wholly sorry that the latter*s rose was not entirely
without thorns. That the flower in question should have
been thornless, as well as so very fine and large, would surely^
have trenched on injustice to herself. This thought had, per-
haps unconsciously, influenced her when enlarging on the
becomingness of a refined indifference to Sir Richard Calmady's.
deformity. In her heart of hearts she was disposed, perhaps
unconsciously, to hail rather than deplore the fact of that same
deformity. For did it not tend subjectively to equalise her lot
and that of her little sister, and modify the otherwise humilia-
ting disparity of their respective fortunes ? Therefore she
capped Lady Louisa's speech, by saying immediately : —

" Yes, indeed, papa, it would only be an unkindness to run-
any risk of upsetting Connie. No really nice girl ever really
quite likes the idea of marriage "

" Doesn't she, though ? " commented Lord Fallowfeild^
with an air of receiving curious, scientific information.

" Oh, of course not ! How could she ? And then, papa,,
you know how you have always indulged Connie " — Lady
Alicia's voice was slightly peevish in tone. She was not m
very good health at the present time, with the consequence
that her face showed thin and bird-like. While, notwith-
standing the genial heat of the summer's day, she presented a.
starved and chilly appearance. — "Always indulged Connie,"
she repeated, " and that has inclined her to be rather selfish
and fanciful."

The above statements, both regarding his own conduct and!
the effect of that conduct upon his little ewe-lamb, nettled the
amiable nobleman considerably. He faced round upon the
speaker with an intention of reprimand, but in so doing his eyes

348 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

were arrested by his daughter's faded dress and disorganised
complexion. He relented. — ^' Poor thing, looks ill," he
thought. "A man's an unworthy brute who ever says a sharp
word to a woman in her condition." — And, before he had time
to find a word other than sharp, Lady Louisa Barking returned
to the charge.

" Exactly," she asserted. "Alicia is perfectly right. At
present Connie is quite reasonable. And all we entreat, papa,
is that you will let her remain so, until you have made up your
own mind. Do pray let us be dignified. One knows how
the servants get hold of anything of this kind and discuss it,
if there is any want of dignity or any indecision. That is too
odious. And I must really think just a little of Mr. Barking
and myself in the matter. It has all gone on in our house,
you see. One must consider appearances, and with all the
recent gossip about Shotover, we do not want another esclandre-
— the servants knowing all about it too. And then, with all
your partiality for Constance, you cannot suppose she will
have many opportunities of marrying men with forty or fifty,
thousand a year."

" No, papa, as Louisa says, in your partiality for Connie
you must not entirely forget the claims of your other children.
She must not be encouraged to think exclusively of herself,
and it is not fair that you should think exclusively of her. I
know that George and I arc poor, but it is through no fault
of our own. He most honourably refuses to take anything
from his mother, and you know how small my private income
is. Yet no one can accuse George of lack of generosity.
When any of my family want to come to us he always makes
them welcome. Maggie only left us last Thursday, and
Emily comes to-morrow. I know we can't do much. It is
not possible with our small means and establishment. But
what little we can do, George is most willing should be done."

"Excellent fellow, Winterbotham," Lord Fallowfeild put
in soothingly. " Very steady, painstaking man, Winter-
botham."

His second daughter looked at him reproachfully.

"Thank you, papa," she said. "I own I was a little hurt
just now by the tone in which you alluded to George."

"Were you, though? I'm sure I'm very sorry, my dear
Alicia. Hate to hurt anybody, especially one of my own

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 349

»;nildrcn. Unnatural thing to hurt one of your own children.
But you see this feeling of all of yours about Shotover has
been very painful to me. I never have liked divisions in
families. Never know where they may lead to. Nasty, un-
comfortable things divisions in families."

" \Yell, papa, I can only say that divisions are almost
invariably caused by a want of the sense of duty." Lady
Louisa's voice was stern. " And if people are over-indulged
they become selfish, and then, of course, they lose their sense
of duty."

" My sister is a notable logician," Mr. Quayle murmured,
under his breath. " If logic ruled life, how clear, how simple
our course ! But then, unfortunately, it doesn't."

" Shotover has really no one but himself to thank for any
bitterness that his brothers and sisters may feel towards him»
He has thrown away his chances, has got the whole family
talked about in a most objectionable manner, and has been a
serious encumbrance to you, and indirectly to all of us. We
have all suffered quite enough trouble and annoyance already.
And so I must protest, papa, I must very strongly and definitely
protest, against Connie being permitted, still more encouraged,
to do exactly the same thing."

Lord Fallowfeild, still grasping his walking-stick, — though
he could not but fear that trusted weapon had proved faithless
and sadly failed in its duty of support, — gazed distractedly at
the speaker. Visions of Jewish money-lenders, of ladies more
fair and kind than wise, of guinea points at whist, of the prize
ring of Baden-Baden, of Newmarket and Doncaster, arose
confusedly before him. What the deuce, — he did not like
bad language, but really, — what the dickens, had all these to do
with his ewe-lamb, innocent little Constance, her virgin-white
body and soul, and her sweet, wide-eyed prettiness ?

" My dear Louisa, no doubt you know what you mean, but
I give you my word I don't," he began.

" Hear, hear, my dear father," put in Mr. Quayle.
'' There I am with you. Louisa's wing is strong, her range
is great. I myself, on this occasion, find it not a little diffi-
cult to follow her."

" Nonsense, Ludovic," almost snapped the lady. " You
follow me perfectly, or can do so if you use your common
sense. Papa must face the fact, that Constance cannot afford

350 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

— that we cannot afford to have her — throw away her chances,
as Shotover has thrown away his. We all have a duty, not
only to ourselves, but to each other. Inclination must give
way to duty — though I do not say Constance exhibits any
real disinclination to this marriage. She is a little flurried.
As Alicia said just now, every really nice-minded girl is flurried
at the idea of marriage. She ought to be. I consider it only
delicate that she should be. But she understands — I have
pointed it out to her — that her money, her position, and those
two big houses — Brockhurst and the one in Lowndes Square —
will be of the greatest advantage to the girls and to her
brothers. It is not as if she was nobody. The scullery-
maid can marry whom she likes, of course. But in our rank
of life it is different. A girl is bound to think of her family,
as well as of herself. She is bound to consider "

The groom-of-the-chambers opened the door and advanced
solemnly across the boudoir to Lord Fallowfeild.

" Sir Richard Calmady is in the smoking-room, my lord,"
he said, " to see you."

CHAPTER V

IPHIGENIA

/^HASTENED in spirit, verbally acquiescent, yet uncon-
^^ vinced, a somewhat pitiable sense of inadequacy upon
him. Lord Fallowfeild traveled back to Westchurch that night.
Two days later the morning papers announced to all whom it
might concern, — and that far larger all, whom it did not really
concern in the least, — in the conventional phrases common to
such announcements, that Sir Richard Calmady and Lady
Constance Quayle had agreed shortly to become man and
wife. Thus did Katherine Calmady, in all trustfulness, strive
to give her son his desire, while the great, and little, world
looked on and made comments, various as the natures and
circumstances of the units composing them.

Lady Louisa was filled with the pride of victory. Her
venture had not miscarried. At church on Sunday — she was
ireally too busy socially, just now, to attend what it was her

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 351

habit to describe as "odds and ends of week-day services,'*
and therefore worshipped on the Sabbath only, and then by no
means in secret or with shut door — she repeated the General
Thanksgiving with much unction and in an aggressively
audible voice. And Lady Alicia Winterbotham expressed a
peevish hope that, — "such great wealth might not turn
Constance's head and make her just a little vulgar. It was
all rather dangerous for a girl of her age, and she '* — the
speaker — " trusted somebody would point out to Connie the
heavy responsibilities towards others such a position brought
with it." And Lord Shotover delivered it as his opinion
that, — " It might be all right. He hoped to goodness it was,
for he'd always been uncommonly fond of the young un.
But it seemed to him rather a put-up job all round, and so he
meant just to keep his eye on Con, he swore he did." In
furtherance of which laudable determination he braved his
eldest sister's frowns with heroic intrepidity, calling to see the
young girl whenever ail other sources of amusement failed
him, and paying her the compliment — as is the habit of the
natural man, when unselfishly desirous of giving pleasure to
the women of his family — of talking continuously and ex-
clusively about his own affairs, his gains at cards, his losses
on horses, even recounting, in moments of more than ordina-
rily expansive affection, the less wholly disreputable episodes
of his many adventures of the heart. And Honoria St.
Quentin's sensitive face straightened and her lips closed
rather tight whenever the marriage was mentioned before her.
She refused to express any view on the subject, and to that
end took rather elaborate pains to avoid the society of Mr.
Quayle. And Lady Dorothy Hellard, — whose unhappy dis-
appointment in respect of the late Lord Sokeington and other
non-successful excursions in the direction of wedlock, had not
cured her of sentimental leanings, — asserted that, — " It was
quite the most romantic and touching engagement she had
ever heard of." To which speech her mother, the Dowager
Lady Combmartin, replied, with the directness of statement
which made her acquaintance so cautious of differing from
her : — " Touching ? Romantic ? Fiddle-de-dee ! You ought
to be ashamed of yourself for thinking so at your age^
Dorothy. A bargain's a bargain, and in my opinion the bride
has got much the best of it. For she's a mawkish, milk-

352 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

and-water, little schoolgirl, while he is charming — all there
is of him. If there'd been a little more I declared Pd have
married him myself." And good-looking Mr. Decies, of the
loist Lancers, got into very hot water with the mounted con-
stables, and with the livery-stable keeper from whom he hired
his hacks, for " furious riding " in the Park. And Julius
March walked the paved ways and fragrant alleys of the red-
walled gardens at Brockhurst, somewhat sadly, in the glowing
June twilights, meditating upon the pitiless power of change
which infects all things human, and of his own lifelong love
doomed to " find no earthly close." And Mrs. Chifney, down
at the racing stables, rejoiced to the point of tears, being pos-
sessed by the persistent instinct of matrimony common to the
British, lower middle-class. And Sandyfield parish rejoiced
likewise, and pealed its church-bells in token thereof, foresee-
ing much carnal gratification in the matter of cakes and ale.
And Madame de Vallorbes, whose letters to Richard had come
to be pretty frequent during the last eight months, was over-
taken by silence and did not write at all.

But this omission on the part of his cousin was grateful,
rather than distressing, to the young man. It appeared to him
very sympathetic of Helen not to write. It showed a finely,
imaginative sensibility and considerateness on her part, which
made Dickie sigh, thinking of it, and then, so to speak, turn
away his head. And to do this last was the less difficult that
his days were very full just now. And his mind was very full,
likewise, of gentle thoughts of, and many provisions for, the
happiness of his promised bride.

The young girl was timid in his presence, it is true. Yet
she was transparently, appealing, anxious to please. Her
conversation was neither ready nor brilliant, but she was very
fair to look upon in her childlike freshness and innocence. A
protective element, a tender and chivalrous loyalty, entered
into Richard's every thought of her. A great passion and a
happy marriage were two quite separate matters — so he argued
in his inexperience. And this was surely the wife a man
should desire, modest, guileless, dutiful, pure in heart as in
person ? The gentle dumbness which often held her did not
trouble him. It was a pretty pastime to try to win her confi-
dence and open the doors of her artless speech.

And then, to Richard, tempted it is true, but as yet him-

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND UP 35J

self unsullied, it was so sacred and wonderful a thing that this
spotless woman-creature in all the fragrance of her youth be-
longed to him in a measure already, and would belong to him,,
before many weeks were out, wholly and of inalienable right.
And so it happened that the very limitations of the young
girl's nature came to enhance her attractions. Dickie could
not get very near to her mind, but that merely piqued his
curiosity and provoked his desire of discovery. She was to
him as a book written in strange character, difficult to de-
cipher. With the result that he accredited her with subtleties
and many fine feelings she did riot really possess, while he
failed to divine — not from defective sympathy so much as
from absorption in his self-created idea of her — the very^
simple feelings which actually animated her. His masculine-
pride was satisfied in that so eligible a maiden consented to-
become his wife. His moral sense was satisfied also, since he
had — as he supposed — put temptation from him and chosen
the better part. Very certainly he was not violently in love.
That he supposed to be a thing of the past. But he was
quietly happy. While ahead lay the mysterious enchantments
of marriage. Dickie's heart was very tender, just then.
Life had never turned on him a more gracious face.

Nevertheless, once or twice, a breath of distrust dimmed
the bright surface of his existing complacency. One day, for
instance, he had taken his fiancee for a morning drive and
brought her home to luncheon. After that meal she should
sit for a while with Lady Calmady and then join him in the
library down-stairs, for he had that which he coveted to show
her. But it appeared to him that she tarried unduly with his
mother, and he grew impatient waiting through the long min-
utes of the summer afternoon. A barrel-organ droned slum-
berously from the other side of the square, while to his ears,
so long attuned to country silences or the quick, intermittent
music of nature, the ceaseless roar of London became burden-
some. Ever after, thinking of this first wooing of his, he re-
called— as slightly sinister — that ever-present murmur of
traffic, — bearing testimony, at it seemed later, to the many-
activities in which he could play, after all, but so paltry and
circumscribed a part.

And, listening to that same murmur now, something of
rebellion against circumstance arose in Dickie for all that the

354 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

present was very good. For, as he considered, any lover
other than himself would not sit pinned to an armchair await-
ing his mistress' coming, but, did she delay, would go to seek
iier, claim her, and bear her merrily away. The organ-
grinder, meanwhile, cheered by a copper shower from some
^ adjacent balcony, turned the handle of his instrument more
vigorously, letting loose stirring valse-tune and march upon
the sultry air. Such music was, of necessity, somewhat com-
fortless hearing to Richard, debarred alike from deeds of arms
or joy of dancing. His impatience increased. It was a little
inconsiderate of his mother surely to detain Constance for so
long ! But just then the sound of women's voices reached
him through the half-open door. The two ladies were leis-
urely descending the stairs. There was a little pause, then he
heard Lady Calmady say, as though in gentle rebuke : —

'^ No, no, dear child, I will not come with you. Richard
would like better to see you alone. Too, I have a number of
letters to write. I am at home to no one this afternoon. You
will find me in the sitting-room here. You can come and bid
me good-bye — now, dear child, go."

Thus admonished. Lady Constance moved forward. Yet,
to Dickie*s listening ears, it appeared that it took her an in-
ordinate length of time to traverse the length of the hall from
the foot of the stairs to the library door. And there again
she paused, the organ, now nearer, rattling out the tramp of a
popular military march. But the throb and beat of the quick-
step failed to hasten little Lady Constance's lagging feet, so
that further rebellion against his own infirmity assaulted poor
Dick.

At length the girl entered with a little rush, her soft cheeks
flushed, her rounded bosom heaving, as though she arrived
from a long and arduous walk, rather than from that particu-
larly deliberate traversing of the cool hall and descent of the
airy stairway.

" Ah ! here you are at last, then ! " Richard exclaimed. "I
began to wonder if you had forgotten all about me."

The young girl did not attempt to sit down, but stood
directly in front of him, her hands clasped loosely, yet some-
what nervously, almost in the attitude of a child about to recite
a lesson. Her still, heifer's eyes were situate so far apart
that Dickie, looking up at her, found it difficult to focus them

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 355

both at the same glance. And this produced an effect of
slight uncertainty, even defect of vision, at once pathetic and
quaintly attractive. Her face was heart-shaped, narrowing
from the wide, low brow to the small, rounded chin set below
a round, babyish mouth of slight mobility but much innocent
sweetness. Her light, brown hair, rising in an upward curve
on either side the straight parting, was swept back softly, yet
smoothly, behind her small ears. The neck of her white,,
alpaca dress, cut square according to the then prevailing fash-
ion, was outlined with flat bands of pale, blue ribbon, and
filled up with lace to the base of the round column of her
throat. Blue ribbons adorned the hem of her simple skirt,,
and a band of the same colour encircled her shapely, though
not noticeably slender, waist. Her bosom was rather full for
so young a woman, so that, notwithstanding her perfect fresh-
ness and air of almost childlike simplicity, there was a certain
statuesque quality in the effect of her white-clad figure seen
thus in the shaded library, with its russet-red walls and fur-
nishings and ranges of dark bookshelves.

" I am so sorry," she said breathlessly. " I should have
come sooner, but I was talking to Lady Calmady, and I did.
not know it was so late. I am not afraid of talking to Lady^
Calmady, she is so very kind to me, and there are many^
questions I wanted to ask her. She promises to help and tell
me what I ought to do. And I am very glad of that. It
will prevent my making mistakes."

Her attitude and the earnestness of her artless speech were
to Richard almost pathetically engaging. His irritation van-
ished. He smiled, looked up at her, his own face flushing a
little.

"I don't fancy you will ever make any very dangerous
mistakes ! " he said.

" Ah ! but I might," the girl insisted. " You see I have
always been told what to do."

"Always? " Dickie asked, more for the pleasure of watch-
ing her stand thus than for any great importance he attached
to her answer.

" Oh yes ! " she said. " First by our nurses, and then by
our governesses. They were not always very kind. They
called me obstinate. But I did not mean to be obstinate-
Only they spoke in French or German, and I could not aU

356 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ways understand. And since I have grown up my elder
sisters have told me what I ought to do."

It seemed to Richard that the girl's small, round chin
xjuivered a little, and that a look of vague distress invaded her
soft, ruminant, wide-set eyes.

"And so I should have been very frightened, now, unless I
had had Lady Calmady to tell me.''

''Well, I think there's only one thing my mother will need
to tell you, and it won't run into either French or German.
It can be stated in very plain English. Just to do whatever
you like, and — and be happy."

Lady Constance stared at the speaker with her air of gentle
perplexity. As she did so undoubtedly her pretty chin did
;quiver a little.

'' Ah ! but to do what you like can never really make you
thappy," she said.

"Can't it? I'm not altogether so sure of that. I had
ventured to suppose there were a number of things you and I
would do in the future which will be most uncommonly pleas-
ant without being conspicuously harmful."

He leaned sideways, stretching out to a neighbouring chair
with his right hand, keeping the light, silk-woven, red blanket
mp across his thighs with his left.

" Do sit down, Constance, and we will talk of things we
■both like to do, at greater length — — Ah ! bother — forgive
me — I can't reach it."

" Oh ! please don't trouble. It doesn't matter. I can get
It quite well myself," Lady Constance said, quite quickly for
once. She drew up the chair and sat down near him, folding
her hands again nervously in her lap. All the colour had
died out of her cheeks. They were as white as her rounded
throat. She kept her eyes fixed on Richard's face, and her
bosom rose and fell, while her words came somewhat gasp-
ingly. Still she talked on with a touching little effect of
^determined civility.

" Lady Calmady was very kind in telling me I might some-
times go over to Whitney," she said. " I should like that. I
•am afraid papa will miss me. Of course there will be all the
others just the same. But I go out so much with him. Of
•course I would not ask to go over very often, because I know
4t might be inconvenient for me to have the horses."

C(

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 357

" But you will have your own horses," Richard answered.
I wrote to Chifney to look out for a pair of cobs for you
last week — browns — you said you liked that colour I remem-
ber. And I told him they were to be broken until big guns,
going off under their very noses, wouldn't make them so
much as wince."

" Are you buying them just for me ? " the girl said.

"Just for you?" Dickie laughed. " Why, who on earth
should I buy anything tor but just you, I should like ta
know ? "

"But" — she began.

" But — but " — he echoed, resting his hands on the two^
arms of his chair, leaning forward and still laughing, though
somewhat shyly. " Don't you see the whole and sole pro-
gramme is that you should do all you like, and have all
you like, and — and be happy."- — Richard straightened him-
self up, still looking full at her, trying to focus both these
quaintly — engaging, far-apart eyes. " Constance, do you
never play ? " he asked her suddenly.

" I did practice every morning at home, but lately "

" Oh ! I don't mean that," the young man said. " I mean
quite another sort of playing."

" Games ? " Lady Constance inquired. " I am afraid I am
rather stupid about games. I find it so difficult to remember
numbers and words, and I never can make a ball go where I
want it to, somehow."

" I was not thinking of games either, exactly," Richard:
said, smiling.

The girl stared at him in some perplexity. Then spoke
again, with the same little effect of determined civility.

" I am very fond of dancing and of skating. The ice was
very good on the lake at Whitney this winter. Rupert and
Gerry were home from Eton, and Eddy had brought a young
man down with him — Mr. Hubbard — who is in his business
in Liverpool, and a friend of my brother Guy's was staying in
the house too, from India. I think you have met him — Mr*
Decies. We skated till past twelve one night — a Wednes-
day, I think. There was a moon, and a great many stars..
The thermometer registered fifteen degrees of frost Mr..
Decies told me. But 1 was not cold. It was very beau-
tiful."

358 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Richard shifted his position. The organ had moved farther
away. Uncheered by further copper showers, it droned again
slumberously, while the murmur sent forth by the thousand
activities of the great city waxed loud, for the moment, and
hoarsely insistent.

" I do not bore you i " Lady Constance asked, in sudden
anxiety.

" Oh no, no ! " Richard answered. " I am glad to have
you tell me about yourself, if you will ; and all that you care
for.'*

Thus encouraged, the girl took up her little parable again,
her sweet, rather vacant, face growing almost animated as she
spoke.

" We did something else I liked very much, but from what
Alicia said afterwards I am afraid I ought not to have liked it.
One day it snowed, and we all played hide-and-seek. There
are a number of attics in the roof of the bachelor's wing at
Whitney, and there are long up-and-down passages leading
round to the old nurseries. Mama did not mind, but Alicia
was very displeased. She said it was a mere excuse for romp-
ing. But that was not true. Of course we never thought of
romping. We did make a great noise," she added conscien-
tiously, " but that was Rupert and Gerry's fault. They would
jump out after promising not to, and of course it was impossi-
ble to help screaming. Eddy's Liverpool friend tried to jump
■out too, but Maggie snubbed him. I think he deserved it.
"Y*ou ought to play fair; don't you think so? After promis-
ing, you would never jump out, would you ? "

And there Lady Constance stopped, with a little gasp.

'' Oh ! I beg your pardon. I am so sorry. I forgot," she
added breathlessly.

Richard's face had become thin and keen.

'^ Forget just as often as you can, please," he answered
huskily. "I would infinitely rather have you — have every-
body— forget altogether — if possible."

"Oh! but I think that would be wrong of me," she re-
joined, with gentle dogmatism. " It is selfish to forget any-
thing that is very sad."

" And is this so very sad ? " Richard asked, almost harshly.

The girl stared at him with parted lips.
Oh yes ! " she said slowly. " Of course, — don't you

C(

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 359

think so ? It Is dreadfully sad." — And then, her attitude still
unchanged and her pretty plump hands still folded on her lap,
she went on, in her touching determination to sustain the
conversation with due readiness and civility. " Brockhurst is
a much larger house than Whitney, isn't it ? I thought so
the day we drove over to luncheon — when that beautiful,
French cousin of yours was staying with you, you re-
member ? "

"Yes, I remember," Richard said.

And as he spoke Madame de Vallorbes, clothed in the sea-
waves, crowned and shod with gold, seemed to stand for a
moment beside his innocent, little Jiancee, How long it was
since he had heard from her ! Did she want money, he won-
dered ? It would be intolerable if, because of his marriage^
she never let him help her again. And all the while Lady
Constance's unemotional, careful, little voice continued, as
did the ceaseless murmur of London.

" I remember," she was saying, " because your cousin is
quite the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Papa ad-
mired her very much too. We spoke of that as soon as
Louisa had left us, when we were alone. But there seemed
to me so many staircases at Brockhurst, and rooms opening
one out of the other. I have been wondering — since — lately
— whether I shall ever be able to find my way about the
house."

" I will show you your way," Dickie said gently, banishing
the vision of Helen de Vallorbes.

" You will show it me ? " the girl asked, in evident
surprise.

Then a companion picture to that of Madame de Vallorbes
arose before Dickie's mental vision — namely, the good-look-
ing, long-legged, young, Irish soldier, Mr. Decies, of the
10 1st Lancers, flying along the attic passages of the Whitney*
bachelor's wing, in company with this immediately — so —
demure and dutiful maiden and all the rest of that admittedly
rather uproarious, holiday throng. Thereat a foolish lump
rose in poor Richard's throat, for he too was, after all, but
young. He choked the foolish lump down again. Yet it
left his voice a trifle husky.

"Yes, I will show you your way," he said. "I can man-
age that much, you know, at home, in private, among my

360 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

own people. Only you mustn't be in a hurry. I have to take
my time. You must not mind that. I — I go slowly."

" But that will be much better for me," she answered, with
rather humble courtesy, " because then I am more likely to
remember my way. I have so much difficulty in knowing my
way. I still lose myself sometimes in the park at Whitney.
I did once this winter with — my brother Guy's friend, Mr.
Decies. The boys always tease me about losing my way.
Even papa says I have no bump of locality. I am afraid I am
-Stupid about that. My governesses always complained that I
was a very thoughtless child."

Lady Constance unfolded her hands. Her timid, en-
gagingly vague gaze dwelt appealingly upon Richard's hand-
some face.

"I think, perhaps, if you do not mind, I will go now," she
said. " I must bid Lady Calmady good-bye. We dine at
Lady Combmartin's to-night. You dine there too, don't you ?
And my sister Louisa may want me to drive with her, or write
-some notes, before I dress."

" Wait half a minute," Dickie said. " I've got something
;for you. Let's see Oh ! there it is ! "

Raising himself he stood, for a moment, on the seat of the
chair, steadying himself with one hand on the back of it, and
reached a little, silver-paper covered parcel from the neigh-
bouring table. Then he slipped back into a sitting position,
-drew the silken blanket up across his thighs, and tossed the
little parcel gently into Lady Constance Quayle's lap.

"I as near as possible let you go without it," he said.
*' Not that it's anything very wonderful. It's nothing — only
I saw it in a shop in Bond Street yesterday, and it struck me
as rather quaint. I thought you might like it. Why — but —
Constance, what's the matter ? "

For the girl's pretty, heart-shaped face had blanched to the
whiteness of her white dress. Her eyes were strained, as
those of one who beholds an object of terror. Not only her
chin but her round, baby mouth quivered. Richard looked at
her, amazed at these evidences of distressing emotion. Then
suddenly he understood.

" 1 frighten you. How horrible ! " he said.

But little Lady Constance had not suffered persistent train-
ing at the hands of nurses, and governesses, and elder sisters.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 361

during all her eighteen years of Innocent living for nothing.
She had her own small code of manners and morals, of honour
and duty, and to the requirements of that code, as she appre-
hended them, she yielded unqualified obedience, not unheroic
in its own meagre and rather puzzle-headed fashion. So that
now, notwithstanding quivering lips, she retained her intention
of civility and entered immediate apology for her own weakness.

" No, no, indeed you do not," she replied. " Please for-
give me. I know I was very foolish. I am so sorry. You
are so kind to me, you are always giving me beautiful pres-
ents, and indeed I am not ungrateful. Only I had never
seen — seen — you like that before. And, please forgive me —
I will never be foolish again — indeed, I will not. But I was
taken by surprise. I beg your pardon. I shall be so dread-
fully unhappy if you do not forgive me."

And all the while her trembling hands fumbled helplessly
with the narrow ribbon tying the dainty parcel, and big tears
rolled down slowly out of her great, soft, wide-set, heifer's
eyes. Never was there more moving or guileless a spectacle !
Witnessing which, Richard Calmady was taken somewhat out
of himself, his personal misfortune seeming matter inconsider-
able, while his childlike fiancee had never appeared more en-
gaging. All the sweetest of his nature responded to her art-
less appeal in very tender pity.

" Why, my dear Constance," he said, " there's nothing to
forgive. I was foolish, not you. I ought to have known
better. Never mind. I don't. Only wipe your pretty eyes,
please. Yes — that's better. Now let me break that tiresome
ribbon for you."

"You are very kind to mc," the girl murmured. Then, as
the ribbon broke under Richard's strong fingers, and the deli-
cate necklace of many, roughly-cut, precious stones — topaz,
amethyst, sapphire, ruby, chrysolite, and beryl joined together,
three rows deep, by slender, golden chains — slipped from the
enclosing paper wrapping into her open hands, Constance
Quayle added, rather tearfully : — " Oh ! you are much too
kind ! You give me too many things. No one I know ever
had such beautiful presents. The cobs you told me of, and
now this, and the pearls, and the tiara you gave me last week.
I — I don't deserve it. You give me too much, and I givQ
nothing: in return."

362 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Oh yes, you do ! " Richard said, flushing. " You — you
give me yourself."

Lady Constance's tears ceased. Again she stared at him in
gentle perplexity.

"You promise to marry me "

'^ Yes, of course, I have promised that," she said slowly.

" And isn't that about the greatest giving there can be ? A
fevi^ horses, and jewels, and such rubbish of sorts, weigh pretty
light in the balance against that — I being I " — Richard paused
a moment — " and you — you."

But a certain ardour which had come into his speech, for all
that he sat very still, and that his expression was wholly gen-
tle and indulgent, and that she felt a comfortable assurance
that he was not angry with her, rather troubled little Lady
Constance Quayle. She rose to her feet, and stood before
him again, as a child about to recite a lesson.

" I think," she said, " I must go. Louisa may want me.
Thank you so much. The necklace is quite lovely. I never
saw one like it. I like so many colours. They remind me
of flowers, or of the colours at sunset in the sky. I shalMike
to wear this very much. You — you will forgive me for hav-
ing been foolish — or if I have bored you ? "

Her bosom rose and fell, and the words came breathlessly,

" I shall see you at Lady Combmartin's ? So — so now I
will go."

And with that she departed, leaving Richard more in love
with her, somehow, than he had ever been before or had ever
thought to be.

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH HONORIA ST. QUENTIN TAKES THE FIELD

I

T had been agreed that the marriage should take place, in
the country, one day in the first week of August. This
at Richard's request. Then the young man asked a further
favour, namely, that the ceremony might be performed in the
private chapel at Brockhurst, rather than in the Whitney par-
ish church. This last proposal, it must be owned, when made

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 363

to him by Lady Calmady, caused Lord Fallowfeild great search-
iags of heart.

"^ I give you my word^ my dear boy, I never felt more
awkward in my life," he said, subsequently, to his chosen
confidant, Shotover. " Can quite understand Calmady doesn't
care to court publicity. Told his mother I quite understood.
Shouldn't care to court it myself if I had the misfortune to
share his — well, personal peculiarities, don't you know, poor
young fellow. Still this seems to me an uncomfortable, hole
and corner sort of way of behaving to one's daughter — marry-
ing her at his house instead of from my own. I don't half
approve of it. Looks a little as if we were rather ashamed of
the whole business." il.

" Well, perhaps we are," Lord Shotover remarked.

*' For God's sake, then, don't mention it ! " the elder man
broke out, with unprecedented asperity. '^ Don't approve of
strong language," he added hastily. " Never did approve of
it, and very rarely employ it myself. An educated man ought
to be able to express himself quite sufficiently clearly without
having recourse to it. Still, I must own this engagement of ;
Constance's has upset me more than almost any event of my
life. Nastv, anxious work marrying your daughters. Heavy
responsibility marrying your daughters. And, as to this par-
ticular marriage, there's so very much to be said on both ;,
sides. And I admit to you, Shotover, if there's anything I
hate it's a case where there's very much to be said on both
sides. It trips you up, you see, at every turn. Then I feel
I was not fairly treated. I don't wish to be hard on your
brother Ludovic and your sisters, but they sprung it upon me,
and I am not quick in argument, never was quick, if I am
hurried. Never can be certain of my own mind when I am
hurried — was not certain of it when Lady Calmady proposed
that the marriage should be at Brockhurst. And sq\J gave
way. Must be accommodating to a woman, yoii know.
Always have been accommodating to women — got myself into
uncommonly tight places by being so more than once when I
was younger "

Here the speaker cheered up visibly, contemplating his
favourite son with an air at once humorous and contrite.

" You're well out of it, you know, Shotover, with no ties,"
he continued, " at least, I mean, with no wife and family.

364 SIR RICHARD CALiMADY

Not that I don't consider every man owning property should
marry sooner or later. More respectable if youVe got prop-
erty to marry, roots you in the soil, gives you a stake, you
know, in the future of the country. But Pd let it be later — yes,,
thinking of marriageable daughters, certainly Td let it be later."

From which it may be gathered that Richard's demands:
were conceded at all points. And this last concession involved
many preparations at Brockhurst, to effect which Lady Cal~
mady left London with the bulk of the household about the
middle of July, while Richard remained in Lowndes Square
and the neighbourhood of his little Jjancee — in company with a
few servants and many brown holland covers — till such time
as that young lady should also depart to the country. It was
just now that Lady Louisa Barking gave her annual ball,
always one of the latest, and this year one of the smartest,
festivities of the season.

*^ I mean it to be exceedingly well done," she said to her
sister Alicia. " And Mr. Barking entirely agrees with me. I
feel I owe it not only to myself, but to the rest of the family
to show that none of us see anything extraordinary in Connie's
marriage, and that whatever Shotover's debts may have been,
or may be, they are really no concern at all of ours."

In obedience to which laudable determination the handsome
mansion in Albert Gate opened wide its portals, and all London
— a far from despicable company in numbers, since Parliament
was still sitting and the session promised to be rather indefi-
nitely prolonged — crowded its fine stairways and suites of
lofty rooms, resplendent in silks and satins, jewels and laces,
in orders and titles, and manifold personal distinctions of
wealth, or office, or beauty, while strains of music and scent
of flowers pervaded the length and breadth of it, and the feet
of the dancers sped over its shining floors.

It chanced that Honoria St. Quentin found herself, on this
occasion, in a meditative, rather than an active, mood. True,
the scene was remarkably brilliant. But she had witnessed
too many parallel scenes to be very much affected by that.
So it pleased her fancy to moralise, to discriminate — not with-
out a delicate sarcasm — between actualities and appearances,
between the sentiments which might be divined really to animate
many of the guests, and those conventional presentments of
sentiment which the manner and bearing of the said guests

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 365

indicated. She assured Lord Shotover she would rather not
dance, that she preferred the attitude of spectator, whereupon
that gentleman proposed to her to take sanctuary in a certain
ante-chamber, opening off Lady Louisa Barking's boudoir,
which was cool, dimly lighted, and agreeably remote from the
turmoil of the entertainment now at its height.

The acquaintance of these two persons was, in as far as
time and the number of their meetings went, but slight, and,
at first sight, their tastes and temperaments would seem wide
asunder as the poles. But contrast can form a strong bond
of union. And the young man, when his fancy was engaged,
was among those who do not waste time over preliminaries.
If pleased, he bundled, neck and crop, into intimacy. And
Miss St. Quentin, her fearless speech, her amusingly detached
attitude of mind, and her gallant bearing, pleased him mightily
from a certain point of view. He pronounced her to be a
*' first-rate sort," and entertained a shrewd suspicion that, as
he put it, Ludovic " was after her." He commended his
brother's good taste. He considered she would make a tip-
top sister-in-law. While the young lady, on her part, accepted
his advances in a friendly spirit. His fraternal attitude and
unfailing good-temper diverted her. His rather doubtful repu-
tation piqued her curiosity. She accepted the general verdict,
declaring him to be good-for-nothing, while she enjoyed the
conviction that, rake or no rake, he was incapable of causing
her the smallest annoyance, or being guilty, — as far as she
herself was concerned, — of the smallest indiscretion.

" You know, Miss St. Quentin," he remarked, as he
established himself comfortably, not to say cosily, on a sofa
beside her, — "over and above the pleasure of a peaceful little
talk with you, I am not altogether sorry to seek retirement.
You see, between ourselves, I'm not, unfortunately, in exactly
good odour with some members of the family just now. I
Son't think I'm shy "

Honoria smiled at him through the dimness.

" I don't think you're shy," she said.

" Well, you know, when you come to consider it from an
unprejudiced standpoint, what the dickens is the use of being
shy? It's only an inverted kind of conceit at best, and half
the time it makes you stand in your own light."
^ " Clearly it's a mistake every way," the young lady asserted.

366 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" And, happily, it's one of which I can entirely acquit you of
being guilty."

Lord Shotover threw back his head and looked sideways at
his companion. — Wonderfully, graceful woman she was cer«
tainly ! Gave you the feeling she'd all the time there was or
ever would be. Delightful thing to see a woman who was
never in a hurry.

" No, honestly I don't believe I'm weak in the way of shy-
ness," he continued. " If I had been, I shouldn't be here
to-night. My sister Louisa didn't press me to come. Strange
as it may appear to you, Miss St. Quentin, I give you my
word she didn't. Nor has she regarded me with an exactly
favourable eye since my arrival. I am not abashed, not a bit.
But I can't disguise from myself that again I have gone, and
been, and jolly well put my foot in it."

He whistled very softly under his breath. — " Oh ! I have, I
promise you, even on the most modest computation, very ex-
tensively and comprehensively put my foot in it ! "

'' How ? " inquired Honoria.

Lord Shotover's confidences invariably amused her, and just
now she welcomed amusement. For crossing her hostess*
boudoir she had momentarily caught sight of that which
changed the speculative sarcasm of her meditations to some-
thing approaching pain — namely, a pretty, wide-eyed, childish
face rising from out a cloud of white tulle, white roses, and
diamonds, the expression of which had seemed to her distress-
ingly remote from all the surrounding gaiety and splendour.
Actualities and appearances here were surely radically at vari-
ance ? And, now, she smilingly turned on her elbow and
made brief inquiry of her companion, promising herself good
measure of superficial entertainment which should serve to
banish that pathetic countenance, and allay her suspicion of a
sorrowful happening which she was powerless alike to hinder
or to help.

Lord Shotover pushed his hands into his trousers pockets^
leaned far back on the sofa, turning his head so that he could
look at her comfortably without exertion and chuckling, a lit-
tle, as he spoke,

" Well, you see," he said, " I brought Decies. No, you're
right, I'm not shy, for to do that was a bit of the most bare-
faced cheek. My sister Louisa hadn't asked him. Of course

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 367

she hadn't. At bottom she's awfully afraid he may still upset
the apple-cart. But I told her I knew, of course, she had in-
tended to ask him, and that the letter must have got lost some-
how in the post, and that I knew how glad she'd be to have
me rectify the little mistake. My manner was not jaunty, -
Miss St. Quentin, or defiant — not a bit of it. It was frank,
manly, I should call it manly and pleasing. But Louisa didn't
seem to see it that way somehow. She withered me, she
scorched me, reduced me to a cinder, though she never uttered
one blessed syllable. The hottest corner of the infernal re-
gions resided in my sister's eye at that moment, and I resided
in that hottest corner, I tell you. Of course I knew I risked
losing the last rag of her regard when I brought Decies. But
you see, poor chap, it is awfully rough on him. He was
making the running all through the winter. I could not help
feeling for him, so I chucked discretion ^"i-

"For the first and only time in your life," put in Honoria ;
gently. " And pray who and what is this disturber of do- -
mestic peace, Decies ? "

" Oh ! you know the whole affair grows out of this engage-
ment of my little sister Connie's. By the way, though, the
Calmadys are great friends of yours, aren't they. Miss St.
Quentin ? "

The young man regarded her anxiously, fearful least he
should have endangered the agreeable intimacy of their present
relation by the introduction of an unpalatable subject of con-
versation.. Even in this semi-obscurity he perceived that her
fine smile had vanished, while the lines of her sensitive face
took on a certain rigidity and effect of sternness. Lord Shot-
over regretted that. For some reason, he knew not what, she
was displeased. He, like an ass, evidently had blundered.

"I'm awfully sorry," he began, " perhaps — perhaps "

"Perhaps it is very impertinent for a mere looker-on like
myself to have any views at all about this marriage," Honoria
put in quickly.

" Bless you, no, it's not," he answered. " I don't see how
anybody can very well be off having views about it — that's
just the nuisance. The whole thing shouts, confound it.
So you might just as well let me hear your views. Miss St.
Quentin. I should be awfully interested. They might help
to strai[;hten my own out a bit."

368 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Honoria paused a moment, doubting how much of hei
thought it would be justifiable to confide to her companion.
A certain vein of knight-errantry in her character inclined her
to set lance in rest and ride forth, rather recklessly, to redress
human wrongs. But in redressing one wrong it too often
happens that another wrong — or something perilously ap-
proaching one — must be inflicted. To save pain in one direc-
tion is, unhappily, to inflict pain in the opposite one. Honoria
was aware how warmly Lady Calmady desired this marriage.
She loved Lady Calmady. Therefore her loyalty was en^
gaged, and yet

"I am no match-maker," she said at last, "and so probably
my view is unnecessarily pessimistic. But I happened to see
Lady Constance just now, and I cannot pretend that she
struck me as looking conspicuously happy."

Lord Shotover flattened his shoulders against the back of
the sofa, expanding his chest and thrusting his hands still
farther into his pockets with a movement at once of anxiety
and satisfaction.

^' I don't believe she is," he asserted. " Upon my word
you're right. I don't believe she is. I doubted it from the
first, and now I'm pretty certain. Of course I know I'm a
bad lot. Miss St. Quentin. I've been very little but a con-
founded nuisance to my people ever since I was born.
They're all ten thousand times better than I am, and they're
doing what they honestly think right. All the same I believe
they're making a ghastly mistake. They're selling the poor,
little girl against her will, that's about the long and short of
it."

He bowed himself together, looking at his companion from
under his eyebrows, and speaking with more seriousness than
she had ever heard him yet speak.

" I tell you it makes me a little sick sometimes to see what
excellent, well-meaning people will do with girls in respect of
marriage. Oh, good Lord ! it just does ! But then a high
moral tone doesn't come quite gracefully from me. I know
that. I'm jolly well out of it. It's not for me to preach.
And so I thought for once I'd act — defy authority, risk land-
ing myself in a worse mess than ever, and give Decies his
chance. And I tell you he really is a charming chap, a gen-
tleman, you know, and a nice, clean-minded, decent fellow —

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 369

mot like me, not a bit. He's awfully hard hit too, and would
be as steady as old time for poor little Con's sake if "

"Ah ! now I begin to comprehend," Honoria said.

" Yes, don't you see, it's a perfectly genuine, for-ever-and-
ever-amen sort of business."

Lord Shotover leaned back once more, and turned a wonder-
fully pleasant, if not preeminently responsible, countenance
upon his companion.

"I never went in for that kind of racket myself. Miss St.
Quentin," he continued. "Not being conspicuously faithful,
I should only have made a fiasco of it. But I give you my
word it touches me all the same when I do run across it. I
think it's awfully lucky for a man to be made that way. And
Decies is. So there seemed no help for it. I had to chuck
discretion, as I told you, and give him his chance."

He paused, and then asked with ^ somewhat humorous air
of self-depreciation : — " What do you think now, have I done
more harm than good, made confusion worse confounded, and
played the fool generally ? "

But again Honoria vouchsafed him no immediate reply.
The meditative mood still held her, and the present conversa-
tion offered much food for meditation. Her companion's
confession of faith in true love, if you had the good fortune
to be born that way, had startled hen That the speaker en-
joyed the reputation of being something of a profligate lent
singular point to that confession. She had not expected it
from Lord Shotover, of all men. And, as coming from him,
the sentiment was in a high degree arresting and interesting.
Her own ideals, so far, had a decidedly anti-matrimonial
tendency, while being in love appeared to her a much over-
rated, if not actively objectionable, condition. Personally she
hoped to escape all experience of it. Then her thought
traveled back to Lady Calmady, — the charm of her personality,
her sorrows, her splendid self-devotion, and to the object of
that devotion — namely, Richard Calmady, a being of strange
contrasts, at once maimed and beautiful, a being from whom
she — Honoria — shrank in instinctive repulsion, while unwill-
ingly acknowledging that he exercised a permament and inti-
mate fascination over her imagination. She dwelt, in quick
pity, too, upon the frightened, wide-eyed, childish face recently
seen rising from out its diaphanous cloud of tulle, the pretti-

370 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ness of it heightened by fair wealth of summer roses and flash
of costly diamonds, and upon Mr. Decies, the whole-hearted,
young soldier lover, whose existence threatened such danger-
ous complications in respect of the rest of this strangely as-
sorted company. Finally her meditative survey returned to its
point of departure. In thought she surveyed her present com-
panion,— his undeniable excellence of sentiment and clear-
seeing, his admittedly defective conduct in matters ethical and
financial. Never before had she been at such close quarters
with living and immediate human drama, and, notwithstanding
her detachment, her lofty indifference and high-spirited
theories, she found it profoundly agitating. She was sensible
of being in collision with unknown and incalculable forces.
Instinctively she rose from her place on the sofa, and, moving
to the open window, looked out into the night.

Below, the Park, now silent and deserted, slept peacefully,
as any expanse of remote country pasture and woodland, in
the mildly radiant moonlight. Here and there were blottings
of dark shadow cast by the clumps or avenues of trees. Here
and there the timid, yellow flame of gas lamps struggled to as-
sert itself against the all-embracing silver brightness. Here
and there windows glowed warm, set in the pale, glistering fa-
cades of the adjacent houses. A cool, light wind, hailing from
the direction of the unseen Serpentine, stirred the hanging
clusters of the pink geraniums that fell over the curved lip of
the stone vases, standing along the broad coping of the bal-
cony, and gently caressed the girl's bare arms and shoulders.

Seen under these unaccustomed conditions familiar objects
assumed a fantastic aspect. For the night is a mighty magi-
cian, with power to render even the weighty brick and stone,
even the hard, uncomprising outlines of a monster, modern
city, delicately elusive, mockingly tentative and unsubstantial.
Meanwhile, within, from all along the vista of crowded and
brilliantly illuminated rooms, came the subdued, yet confused
and insistent, sound of musical instruments, of many voices,
many footsteps, the hush of women's trailing garments, the
rise and fall of unceasing conversation. And to Honoria
standing in this quiet, dimly-seen place, the sense of that moon-
lit world without, and this gas and candle-iit world within,
increased the nameless agitation which infected her. A haunt-
ing persuasion of the phantasmagoric character of all sounds

A SUP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 371

that saluted her ears, all sights that met her eyes, possessed
her. A vast uncertainty surrounded and pressed in on her,
while those questionings of appearances and actualities, of
truth and falsehood, right and wrong, justice and injustice,
with which she had played idly earlier in the evening, took on
new and almost terrible proportions, causing her intelligence,
nay, her heart itself, to reach out, as never before, in search
of some sure rock and house of defense against the disintegrat-
ing apprehension of universal instability and illusion.

" Ah ! it is all very difficult, difficult to the point of alarm ! '*
she exclaimed suddenly, turning to Lord Shotover and looking
him straight in the face, with an unself-consciousness and de-
sire of support so transparent, that that gentleman found him-
self at once delighted and slightly abashed.

'' Bless my soul, but Ludovic is a lucky devil ! " he said to
himself. — "What's — what's so beastly difficult. Miss St.
Quentin ? " he asked aloud. And the sound of his cheery
voice recalled Honoria to the normal aspects of existence with
almost humorous velocity. She smiled upon him.

" I really believe I don't quite know," she said. " Perhaps
that the two people, of whom we were speaking, really care
for each other, and that this engagement has come between
them, and that you have chucked discretion and given him his
chance. Tell me, what sort of man is he — strong enough to
make the most of his chance when he's got it ? "

But at that moment Lord Shotover stepped forward, adroitly
planting himself right in front of her and thus screening her
from observation.

" By George ! " he said under his breath, in tones of min-
gled amusement and consternation, " he's making the most of
his chance now Miss St. Quentin, and that most uncommonly
comprehensively, unless Fm very much mistaken."

Her companion's tall person and the folds of a heavy cur-
tain, while screening Honoria from observation, also, in great
measure, obscured her view of the room. Yet not so com-
pletely but that she saw two figures cross it, one black, one
white, those of a man and a girl. They were both speaking,
the man apparently pleading, the girl protesting and moving
hurriedly, the while, as though in actual flight. She must
have been moving blindly, at random, for she stumbled against
the outstanding, gilded leg of a consol table, set against the

37^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

furthef wall, causing the ornaments on it to rattle. And sd
doing, she gave a plaintive exclamation of alarm, perhaps even
of physical pain. Hearing which, that nameless agitation,
that sense of collision with unknown and incalculable forces,
seized hold on Honoria again, while Lord Shotover's features
contracted and he turned his head sharply.

*^ By George ! " he repeated under his breath.

But the girl recovered herself, and, followed by her com-
panion,— he still pleading, she still protesting, — passed by the
further window on to the balcony and out of sight. There
followed a period of embarrassed silence on the part of the
usually voluble Shotover, while his pleasant countenance ex-
pressed a certain half-humorous concern.

" Really, Fm awfully sorry," he said. ''I'd not the slight-
est intention of landing you in for the thick of the brown like
this."

" Or yourself either," she replied, smiling, though, with that
sense of nameless agitation still upon her, her heart beat rather
quick.

" Well, perhaps not. Between ourselves, moral courage
isn't my strong point. There's nothing I funk like a row. I
say, what shall we do ? Don't you think we'd better quietly
clear out ? "

But just then a sound caught Honoria's ear before which all
vague questions of ultimate truth and falsehood, right and
wrong fled away. Whatever might savour of illusion, here
was something real and actual, something pitiful, moreover,
arousing the spirit of knight-errantry in her, pushing her to lay
lance in rest and go forth, reckless of conventionalities, reck-
less even of considerations of justice, to the succour of op-
pressed womanhood. What words the man, on the balcony
without, was saying she could not distinguish — whether cruel
or kind, but that the young girl was weeping, with the aban-
donment of long-resisted tears, she could not doubt.

" No, no, listen Lord Shotover," she exclaimed authorita-
tively. " Don't you hear? She is crying as if her poor heart
would break. You must stay. If I understand you rightly
your sister has only got you to depend on. Whatever hap-
pens you must stand by her and see her through."

" Oh ! but, my dear Miss St. Quentin " The young

man's aspect was entertaining. He looked at the floor, he

A SLIP BETWIXT CtfP AND LIP 373

looked at Honoria, he rubbed the back of his neck with one
hand as though there might be placed the seat of fortitude.
*' You're inviting me to put my head into the liveliest hornet's
nest. What the deuce — excuse me — am I to say to her and
all the rest of them ? Decies, even, mayn't quite understand
my interference and may resent it. I think it is very much
safer, all round, to let them — him and her — thrash it out be-
tween them, don't you know. I say though, what a beastly
thing it is to hear a woman cry ! I wish to goodness we'd
never come into this confounded place and let ourselves in for
it."

As he spoke. Lord Shotover turned towards the door, medi-
tating escape in the direction of that brilliant vista of crowded
rooms. But Honoria St. Quentin, her enthusiasm once
aroused, became inexorable. With her long swinging stride
she outdistanced his hesitating steps, and stood, in the door-
way, her arms extended — as to stop a runaway horse — her
clear eyes aglow as though a lamp burned behind them, her
pale, delicately cut face eloquent of very militant charity. A
spice of contempt, moreover, for his display of pusillanimity
was quite perceptible to Shotover in the expression of this
charming, modern angel, clad in a ball-dress, bearing a fan in-
stead of the traditional fiery-sword, who, so determinedly,
barred the entrance of that comfortably conventional, worldly
paradise to which he, just now, so warmly desired to regain
admittance.

" No, no," she said, with a certain vibration in her quiet
voice, " you are not to go ! You are not to desert her. It
would be unworthy. Lord Shotover. You brought Mr. Decies
here and so you are mainly responsible for the present situa-
tion. And think, just think what it means. All the course
of her life will be affected by that which takes place in the
next half-hour. You would never cease to reproach yourself
if things went wrong."

" Shouldn't I ? " the young man said dubiously.

*' Of course you wouldn't," Honoria asserted. " Having
it in your power to help, and then shirking the responsibility !
I won't believe that of you. You are better than that. For
think how young she is, and pretty and dependent. She may
be driven to do some fatally, foolish thing if she's left un-
supported You must at least know what is going on. You

374 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

are bound to do so. Moreover, as a mere matter of courtesy,
yoii can't desert me and I intend to stay/*

" Do you, though ? '* faltered Lord Shotover, in tones curi-
ously resembling his father's.

Honoria drew herself up proudly, almost scornfully. \^

" Yes, I shall stay," she continued. " I am no match-
maker. I have no particular faith in or admiration for mar-
riage "

" Haven't you, though ? " said Lord Shotover. He was
slightly surprised, slightly amused, but to his credit be it stated
that he put no equivocal construction upon the young lady's
frank avowal. He felt a little sorry for Ludovic, that was all,
fearing the latter's good fortune was less fully established than
he had supposed.

" No, I don't believe very much in marriage — modern,
upper-class marriage," she repeated. "And, just precisely on
that account, it seems to me all the more degrading and
shameful that a girl should risk marrying the wrong man.
People talk about a broken engagement as though it was a dis~
grace. I can't see that. An unwilling, a — a — loveless mar-
riage is the disgrace. And so at the very church door I would
urge and encourage a woman to turn back, if she doubted, and
have done with the whole thing."

" Upon my word ! " murmured Lord Shotover. — The in*
finite variety of the feminine outlook, the unqualified audacity
of feminine action, struck him as bewildering. Talk of wom-
en's want of logic ! It was their relentless application of
logic — as they apprehended it — which staggered him.

Honoria had come close to him. In her excitement she
laid her fan on his arm.

" Listen," she said, "listen how Lady Constance is crying.
Come — you must know what is happening. You must com-
fort her."

The young man thrust his hands into his pockets with an
air of good-humoured and despairing resignation.

" All right," he replied, " only I tell you what it is, Miss St.
Quentin, you've got to come too. I refuse to be deserted."

" I have not the smallest intention of deserting you,"
Honoria said. " Even yet discretion, though so lately
chucked, might return to you. And then you might cut and
run, don't you know."

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 375

CHAPTER VII

RECORDING THE ASTONISHING VALOUR DISPLAYED BY A CER*
TAIN SMALL MOUSE IN A CORNER

A S Honoria St. Quentin and the reluctant Shotover stepped,
"^^ side by side, from the warmth and dimness obtaining in
the anteroom, into the pleasant coolness of the moonlit bal-
cony. Lady Constance Quayle, altogether forgetful of her
usual careful civility and pretty correctness of demeanour,
uttered an inarticulate cry — a cry, indeed, hardly human in its
abandon and unreasoning anguish, resembling rather the shriek
of the doubling hare as the pursuing greyhound nips it across
the loins. Regardless of all her dainty finery of tulle, and
roses, and flashing diamonds, she flung herself forward, face
downwards, across the coping of the balustrade, her bare arms
outstretched, her hands clasped above her head. Mr. Decies,
blue-eyed, black-haired, smooth of skin, looking noticeably
long and lithe in his close-fitting, dress clothes, made a rapid
movement as though to lay hold on her and bear her bodily
away. Then, recognising the futility of any such attempt, he
turned upon the intruders, his high-spirited Celtic face drawn
with emotion, his attitude rather dangerously warlike.

" What do you want ? " he demanded hotly.

" My dear good fellow," Lord Shotover began, with the
most assuaging air of apology. " I assure you the very last
thing I — we — I mean I — want is to be a nuisance. Only
Miss St. Quentin thought — in fact, Decies, don't you see —
dash it all, you know, there seemed to be some sort of worry
going on out here and so "

But Honoria did not wait for the conclusion of elaborate
explanations, for that cry and the unrestraint of the girl's atti-
tude not only roused, but shocked her. It was not fitting that
any man, however kindly or even devoted, should behold this
well-bred, modest and gentle, young maiden in her present
extremity. So she swept past Mr. Decies and bent over Lady
Constance Quayle, raised her, strove to soothe her agitation,
speaking in tones of somewhat indignant tenderness.

376 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

But, though deriving a measure of comfort from the steady
arm about her waist, from the strong, protective presence,
from the rather stern beauty of the face looking down into
hers, Lady Constance could not master her agitation. The
train had left the metals, so to speak, and the result was con-
fusion dire. A great shame held her, a dislocation of mind.
She suffered that loneliness of soul which forms so integral a
part of the misery of all apparently irretrievable disaster,
v/hether moral or physical, and places the victim of it, in
imagination at all events, rather terribly beyond the pale.

*' Oh ! " she sobbed, " you ought not to be so kind to me.
I am very wicked. I never supposed I could be so wicked.
What shall I do ? I am so frightened at myself and at every-
thing. I did not recognise you. I didn't see it was only
Shotover."

" Well, but now you do see, my dear Con, it's only m©,"^
that gentleman remarked, with a cheerful disregard of gram-
mar. " And so you mustn't upset yourself any more. It's
awfully bad for you, and uncomfortable for everybody else,
don't you know. You must try to pull yourself together a
bit and we'll help you — of course, I'll help you. We'll all
help you, of course we will, and pull you through somehow."

But the girl only lamented herself the more piteously.

" Oh no, Shotover, you must not be so kind to me ! You
couldn't if you knew how wicked I have been."

" Couldn't I ? " Lord Shotover remarked, not without a
touch of humorous pathos. " Poor little Con ! "

'' Only, only please do not tell Louisa. It would be too
dreadful if she knew — she, and Alicia, and the others. Don't
tell her, and I will be good. I will be quite good, indeed I will."

" Bless me, my dear child, I won't tell anybody anything.
To begin with I don't know anything to tell."

The girl's voice had sunk away into a sob. She shuddered,
letting her pretty, brown head fall back against Honoria St.
Quentin's bare shoulder, — while the moonlight glinted on her
jewels and the night wind swayed the hanging clusters of the
pink geraniums. Along with the warmth and scent of flow-
ers, streaming outward through the open windows, came a
confused sound of many voices, of discreet laughter, mingled
with the wailing sweetness of violins. Then the pleading,
broken, childish voice took up its tale again : —

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 377

"I will be good. I know I have promised, and I have let
him give me a number of beautiful things. He has been very
kind to me, because he is clever, and of course I am stupid.
But he has never been impatient with me. And I am not un-
grateful, indeed, Shotover, I am not. It was only for a
minute I was wicked enough to think of doing it. But Mr.
Decies told me he — asked me — and — and we were so happy at
Whitney in the winter. And it seemed too hard to give it all
up, as he said it was true. But I will be good, indeed I will.
Really it was only for a minute I thought of it. I know I
have promised. Indeed, I will make no fuss. I will be good^
I will marry Richard Calmady."

" But this is simply intolerable ! " Honoria said in a low
voice. ,,,„^

She held herself tall and straight, looking gallant yet pure^
austere even, as some pictured Jeanne d'Arc, a great single-
ness of purpose, a high courage of protest, an effect at once
of fearless challenge and of command in her bearing. — " Is it
not a scandal," she went on, " that in a civilised country, at
this time of day, woman should be allowed, actually forced, to
suffer so much ? You must not permit this martyrdom to be
completed — you can't ! *'

As she spoke Decies watched her keenly. Who this stately,
young lady — so remarkably unlike the majority of Lord Shot-
over's intimate, feminine acquaintance — might be, he did nof
know. But he discerned in her an ally and a powerful one.

" Yes," he said impulsively, '^ you are right. It is a martyr-*
dom and a scandalous one. It's worse than murder, it's sac
rilege. It's not like any ordinary marriage. I don't want to
be brutal, but it isn't. There's something repulsive in it,
something unnatural."

The young man looked at Honoria, and read in her expression
a certain agreement and encouragement.

"You know it, Shotover — you know it just as well as I
do. And that justified me in attempting what I suppose I
would not otherwise have felt it honourable to attempt. — Look
here, Shotover, I will tell you what has just happened. I
would havejhad to tell you to-morrow, in any case, if we had
carried the plan out. But I suppose I have no alternative but
to tell you now, since you've come."

He ranged himself in line with Miss St. Quentin, his back

378 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

against one of the big stone vases. He struggled honestly to
keep both temper and emotion under control, but a rather
volcanic energy was perceptible in him.

" I love Lady Constance/' he said. ^^ I have told her so,
and — and she cares for me. I am not a Crcesus like Calmady.
But I am not a pauper. I have enough to keep a w^ife in a
manner suitable to her position, and my own. When my
Uncle Ulick Decies dies — which I hope he'll not hurry to do,
since I am very fond of him — there'll be the Somersetshire
property in addition to my own dear, old place in County
Cork. And your sister simply hates this marriage "

" Lord bless me, my dear fellow, so do I ! " Lord Shotover
put in with evident sincerity.

" And so, when at last I had spoken freely, I asked her
to

But the young girl cowered down, hiding her face in
Honoria St. Quentin's bosom.

" Oh ! don't say it again — don't say it," she implored. " It
was wicked of me to listen to you even for a minute. I ought
to have stopped you at once and sent you away. It was very
wrong of me to listen, and talk to you, and tell you all that
I did. But everything is so strange, and I have been so mis-
erable. I never supposed Anybody could ever be so misera-
ble. And I knew it was ungrateful of me, and so I dared not
tell anybody. I would have told papa, but Louisa never let
me be alone with him. She said papa indulged me, and made
me selfish and fanciful, and so I have never seen him for more
than a little while. And I have been so frightened." — She
raised her head, gazing wide-eyed first at Miss St. Quentin
and then at her brother. "I have thought such dreadful
things. I must be very bad. I wanted to run away. I
wanted to die "

"There, you hear, you hear," Decies cried hoarsely,
spreading abroad his hands, in sudden violence of appeal to
Honoria. " For God's sake help us ! I am not aware
whether you are a relation, or a friend, or what. But I am
convinced you can help, if only you choose to do so. And
I tell you she is just killing herself over this accursed marriage.
Some one's got at her and talked her into some wild notion
of doing her duty, and marrying money for the sake of her
family."

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 379-.

" Oh ! I say, damn it all," Lord Shotover exclaimed, smit-
ten with genuine remorse.

" And so she believes she's committing the seven deadly sins, .
and I don't knou^ u^hat besides, because she rebels against this
marriage and is unhappy. Tell her it's absurd, it's horrible,
that she should do what she loathes and detests. Tell her this
talk about duty is a blind, and a fiction. Tell her she isn't
wicked. Why, God in heaven, if we were none of us more
wicked than she is, this poor old world would be so clean a
place that the holy angels might walk barefoot along the Pic-
cadilly pavement there, outside, without risking to soil so much
as the hem of their garments ! Make her understand that the
only sm for her is to do violence to her nature by marrying a.
man she's afraid of, and for whom she does not care. I
don't want to play a low game on Sir Richard Calmady and.
steal that which belongs to him. But she doesn't belong to
him — she is mine, just my own. I knew that from the first
day I came to Whitney, and looked her in the face, Shotover..
And she knows it too, only she's been terrorised with all this-
devil's talk of duty."

So far the words had poured forth volubly, as in a torrent..
Now the speaker's voice dropped, and they came slowly, de-
fiantly, yet without hesitation.

'^ And so I asked her to go away with me, now, to-night^,
and marry me to-morrow. I can make her happy — oh, no
fear about that ! And she would have consented and gone.
We'd have been away by now — if you and this lady had not.
come just when you did, Shotover."

The gentleman addressed whistled very softly.

" Would you, though ? " he said, adding meditatively : —
" By George now, who'd have thought of Connie going the
pace like that ! " '

" Oh, Shotover, never tell, promise me you will never tell
them ! " the poor child cried again. "I know it was wicked,,
but "

" No, no, you are mistaken there," Honoria put in, holding ;
her still closer. "You were tempted to take a rather desperate
way out of your difficulties. It would have been unwise, but
there was nothing wicked in it. The wrong thing is — as Mr.^
Decies tells you — to marry without love, and so make all your;

380 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

life a lie, by pretending to give Richard Calmady that which
you do not, and cannot, give him."

Then the young soldier broke in resolutely again.

" I tell you I asked her to go away, and I ask her again
now '*

"The deuce you do!" Lord Shotover exclaimed, his
sense of amusement getting the better alike of astonishment
and of personal regrets.

" Only now I ask you to sanction her going, Shotover.
And I ask you " — he turned to Miss St. Quentin — "to come
with her. I am not even sure of your name, but I know by
all that you've said and done in the last half-hour, I can be
very sure of you. And, I perceive, that if you come nobody
will dare to say anything unpleasant — there'll be nothing, in-
deed, to be said."

Honoria smiled. The magnificent egoism of mankind in
Jove struck her as distinctly diverting. Yet she had a very
kindly feeling towards this black-haired, bright-eyed, ener-
getic, young lover. He was in deadly earnest — to the remov-
ing even of mountains. And he had need to be so, for that
mountains immediately blocked the road to his desires was
evident even to her enthusiastic mind. She looked across
compellingly at Lord Shotover. Let him speak first. She
^needed time, at this juncture, in which to arrange her ideas
and to think.

" My dear good fellow," that gentleman began obediently,
patting Decies on the shoulder, " I'm all on your side. I
give you my word I am, and I've reason to believe my father
will be so too. But you see, an elopement — specially in our
sort of highly respectable, humdrum family — is rather a
strong order. Upon my honour, it is, you know, Decies.
And, even though kindly countenanced by Miss St. Quentin,
and sanctioned by me, it would make a precious undesirable
lot of talk. It really is a rather irregular fashion of conduct-
ing the business you see. And then — advice I always give
others and only wish I could always remember to take myself
— it's very much best to be off with the old love before you're
^bn with the new."

"Yes, yes," Miss St. Quentin put in with quick decision.
'^^ Lord Shotover has laid his finger on the heart of the matter.
fit is just that. — Lady Constance's engagement to Richard

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 381

Calmady must be cancelled before her engagement to you.
Captain Decies, is announced. For her to go away with you
would be to invite criticism, and put herself hopelessly in the
wrong. She must not put herself in the wrong. Let me
think' There must be some way by which we can avoid
that."

An exultation, hitherto unexperienced by her, inspired Ho-
noria St. Quentin. Her attitude was slightly unconventional.
She sat on the stone balustrade, with long-limbed, lazy grace,,
holding the girl's hand, forgetful of herself, forgetful, in a
degree, of appearances, concerned only with the problem of
rescue presented to her. The young man's honest, whole-
hearted devotion, the young girl's struggle after duty and her
piteous desolation, nay, the close contact of that soft, maidenly
body that she had so lately held against her in closer, more
intimate, contact than she had ever held anything human be-
fore, aroused a new class of sentiment, a new order of emo-
tion, within her. She realised, for the first time, the magnet-
ism, the penetrating and poetic splendour of human love.
To witness the spectacle of it, to be thus in touch with it>
excited her almost as sailing a boat in a heavy sea, or riding
to hounds in a stifF country, excited her. And it followed
that now, while she perched aloft boy-like on the balustrade^
her delicate beauty took on a strange effulgence, a something,
spiritual, mysterious, elusive, and yet dazzling as the moon-
light which bathed her charming figure. Seeing which, it
must be owned that Lord Shotover's attitude towards her
ceased to be strictly fraternal, while the attractions of ladies
more fair and kind than wise paled very sensibly.

"I wish I hadn't been such a fool in my day, and run
amuck with my chances," he thought.

But Miss St. Quentin was altogether innocent of his ob-
servation or any such thinkings. She looked up suddenly, her
face irradiated by an exquisite smile.

" Yes, I have it," she cried. " I see the way clear."

" But I can't tell them," broke in Lady Constance.

Honoria's hand closed down on hers reassuringly.

"No," she said, "you shall not tell them. And Lord
Shotover shall not tell them. Sir Richard Calmady shall tell
Lord Fallowfeild that he wishes to be released from his en-
gagement, as he believes both you and he will be happier

:382 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

apart. Only you must be brave, both for your own sake,
and for Mr. Decies', and for Richard Calmady's sake, also.
— Lady Constance," she went on, with a certain gentle au-
thority, " do you want to go back to Whitney to-morrow, or
next day, all this nightmare of an unhappy marriage done
away with and gone ? Well, then, you must come and see
Sir Richard Calmady to-night, and, like an honourable woman,
tell him the whole truth. It must be done at once, or your
courage may fail. We will come with you — Lord Shotover
and I "

" Good Lord, will we though ! " the young man ejaculated,
while the girl's great, heifer's eyes grew strained with wonder
at this astounding announcement,

" I know it will be rather terrible," Honoria continued
calmly. "But it is a matter of a quarter of an hour, as
against a lifetime, and of honour as against a lie. So it's
worth while, don't you think so, when your whole future, and
Mr. Decies' " — she pressed the soft hand again steadily — " is
at stake ? You must be brave now, and tell him the truth —
just simply that you do not love him enough — that you have
tried, — you have, I know you have done that, — but you have
.failed, that you love some one else, and that therefore you beg
him, in mercy, before it is too late, to set you free."

Fascinated both by her appearance and by the simplicity of
her trenchant solution of the difficulty, Lord Shotover stared
at the speaker. Her faith was infectious. Yet it occurred to
him that all women, good and bad, are at least alike in this —
that their methods become radically unscrupulous when they
find themselves in a tight place.

" It is a fine plan. It ought to work, for — cripple or not —
poor Calmady's a gentleman," he said, slowly. " But doesn't
it seem just a trifle rough. Miss St. Quentin, to ask him to be
his own executioner ? "

Honoria had slipped down from the balustrade, and stood
erect in the moonlight.

" I think not," she replied. " The woman pays, as a rule.
Lady Constance has paid already quite heavily enough, don't
you think so ? Now we will have the exception that proves
the rule. The man shall pay whatever remains of the debt.
But we must not waste time. It is not late yet, we shall still
.find him up, and my brougham is here. I told Lady Aldham

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 38J

I should be home fairly early. Get a cloak Lady Constance
and meet us in the hall. I suppose you can go down bj
some back way so as to avoid meeting people. Lord Shot-
over, will you take me to say good-night to your sister, Lady
Louisa ? "

:^;The young man fairly chuckled.

:"And you, Mr. Decies, must stay and dance." — $h->i
smiled upon him very sweetly. " I promise you it will come
through all right, for, as Lord Shotover says, whatever his
misfortunes may be, Richard Calmady is a gentleman. — Ah !
I hope you are going to be very happy. Good-bye."

' Decies' black head went down over her hand, and he kissed
it impulsively.

^^ Good-bye," he said, the words catching a little in his^
throat. "When the time comes, may you find the man to
love you as you deserve — though I doubt if there's such
a man living, or dead either, for that matter ! God bless;
you."

Some half-hour later Honoria stood among the holland-
shrouded furniture in Lady Calmady's sitting-room in
Lowndes Square. The period of exalted feeling, of the con-
viction of successful attainment, was over, and her heart beat
somewhat painfully. For she had had time, by now, to realise
the surprising audacity of her own proceedings. Lord Shot-
over's parley with Richard Calmady's man-servant, on the
door-step, had brought that home to her, placing what had
seemed obvious, as a course of action to her fervid imagination,,
in quite a new light. — Sir Richard Calmady was at home f
He was still up? — To that, yes. Would he see Lady
Constance Quayle upon urgent business ? — To that again, ye&
— after a rather lengthy delay, while the valet, inscrutable, yet
evidently highly critical, made inquiries. — The trees in thet
square had whispered together uncomfortably, while the two-
young ladies waited in the carriage. And Lord Shotover's
shadow, which had usually, very surely, nothing in the least
portentous about it, lay queerly, three ways at once, in vary-
ing degrees of density, across the gray pavement in the con-
flicting gas and moonlight.

And now, as she stood among the shrouded furniture, which,
appeared oddly improbable in shape seen in the flickering of
two hastily lighted candles, Honoria could hear Shotover

384 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

walking back and forth, patiently, on that same gray pave-
ment outside. She was overstrained by the emotions and
'events of the past hours. Small matters compelled her atten-
tion. The creaking of a board, the rustle of a curtain, the
silence even of this large, but half-inhabited, house, were to
her big with suggestion, disquietingly replete with possible
:meaning, of exaggerated importance to her anxiously listen-
ing ears.

Lord Shotover had stopped walking. He was talking to
the coachman. Honoria entertained a conviction that, in the
overflowing of his good nature, he talked — sooner or later —
to every soul whom he met. And she derived almost childish
comfort from the knowledge of the near neighbourhood of
that eminently good-natured presence. Lord Shotover's very
obvious faults faded from her remembrance. She estimated
him only by his size, his physical strength, his large indul-
gence of all weaknesses — including his own. He constituted
a link between her and things ordinary and average, for
which she was rather absurdly thankful at this juncture. For
the minutes passed slowly, very slowly. It must be getting
on for half an hour since little Lady Constance, trembling
and visibly affrighted, had passed out of sight, and the door
of the smoking-room had closed behind her. The nameless
agitation which possessed her earlier that same evening re-
turned upon Honoria St. Quentin. But its character had
suffered change. The questioning of the actual, the suspicion
of universal illusion, had departed, and in its place she suffered
alarm of the concrete, of the incalculable force of human pas-
sion, and of a manifestation of tragedy in some active and
violent form. She did not define her own fears, but they sur-
rounded her nevertheless, so that the slightest sound made her
start.

For, indeed, how slowly the minutes did pass ! Lord Shot-
over was walking again. The horse rattled its bit, and pawed
the ground impatient of delay. Though lofty, the room ap-
peared close and hot, with drawn blinds and shut windows.
Honoria began to move about restlessly, threading her way be-
tween the pieces of shrouded furniture. A chalk drawing of
Lady Calmady stood on an easel in the far corner. The por-
trait emphasised the sweetness and abiding pathos, rather than
ithe strength, of the original, and Honoria, standing before it.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 385

put her hands over her eyes. For the pictured face seemed to
plead with and reproach her. Then a swift fear took her of
disloyalty, of hastiness, of self-confidence trenching on cruelty.
She had announced, rather arrogantly, that whatever balance
debt remained to be paid, in respect of Sir Richard and Lady
Constance Quayle's proposed marriage, should be paid by the
man. But would the man, in point of fact, pay it ? Would
it not, must it not, be paid, eventually, by this other noble and
much enduring woman — whom she had called her friend, and
towards whom she played the part, as she feared, of betrayer ?
In her hot espousal of Lady Constance's cause she had only

saved one woman at the expense of another Oh ! how hot

the room grew ! Suffocating Lord Shotover's steps died

away in the distance. She could look Lady Calmady in the
face no more. Secure in her own self-conceit and vanity, she
had betrayed her friend.

Suddenly the sharp peal of a bell, the opening of a door, the
dragging of silken skirts, and the hurrying of footsteps. —
Honoria gathered up her somewhat scattered courage, and
swung out into the hall. Lady Constance Quayle came to-
wards her, groping, staggering, breathless, her head carried
low, her face convulsed with weeping. But to this, for the
moment. Miss St. Quentin paid small heed. For, at the far
end of the hall, a bright light streamed out from the open
doorway. And in the full glare of it stood a young man — his
head, with its cap of close-cropped curls proudly distinguished
as that of some classic hero, his features the beautiful features
of Katherine Calmady, his height but two-thirds the height a
man of his make should be, his face drawn and livid as that of
a corpse, his arms hanging down straight at his sides, his hands
only just not touching the marble quarries of the floor on
either side of him.

Honoria uttered an exclamation of uncontrollable pity and
horror, caught Constance Quayle by the arm, and hurried out
into the moonlit square to the waiting carriage. Lord Shot-
over flung away the end of his cigar and strolled towards
them.

" Got through, fixed It all right — eh, Connie ? Bravo —
that's grand ! — Oh, you needn't tell mc ! I can imagine it's
been a beastly piece of work, but anyway it's over now. You
must go home and go to bed, and I'll account for you some-

386 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

how to Louisa. My mind's becoming quite inventive to-
night, I promise you. — There, get in — try to pull yourself
together. Miss St. Quentin, upon my word, I don't know
how to thank you. You've been magnificent, and put us un-
der an everlasting obligation. Con and Decies, and my fathef
and I. — Nice night, isn't it ? You'll put us down in Albert
Gate ? All right. A thousand thanks. — Yes, I'll go on the
box again. You haven't much room for my legs among all
those flounces. Bless me, it occurs to me I'm getting con-
foundedly hungry. I shall be awfully glad of some supper."

CHAPTER VIII

A MANIFESTATION OF THE SPIRIT

T> ROCKHURST HOUSE had slumbered all day long in
"^ the steady warmth of the July sun. The last three
weeks had been rainless, so that the short turf of the uplands
began to grow crisp and discoloured, while the resinous scent
of the fir forest, at once stimulating and soothing, was carried
afar out over the sloping corn-fields and low-lying pastures.
Above the stretches of purple-budding heather and waste
sandy places, upon the moors, the heat-haze danced and
quivered as do vapours arising from a furnace. Along the un-
derside of the great woods, and in the turn of the valleys,
shadows lingered, which were less actual shadows than blot-
tings of blue light. The birds, busy feeding wide-mouthed,
hungry fledglings, had mostly ceased from song. But the
drowsy hum of bees and chirrup of grasshoppers was continu-
ous, and told, very pleasantly, of the sunshine and large plenty
reigning out of doors.

For Katherme the day in question had passed in Martha-
like occupations. — A day of organising, of ordering and coun-
termanding, a day of much detail, much interviewing of heads
of departments, a day of meeting respectful objections, en-
lightening thick understandings, gently reducing decorously
opposing wills. Commissariat, transport, housing of guests,
and the servants of guests — all these entered into the matter
of the coming wedding. To compass the doing of all things.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP / ^D LIP 387

not only decently and in order, but handsomely, and with a
becoming dignity, this required time and thought. And so,
it was not until after dinner that Katherine found herself at
leisure to cease taking thought for the morrow. Too tired to
rest herself by reading, she wandered out on the troco-ground
followed by Camp.

London had not altogether suited the bull-dog as the sum-
mer wore on. Now, in his old age, so considerable a change
of surroundings put him about both in body and mind. See-
ing which, Richard had begged his mother to take the dog
with her on leaving town. Camp benefited, unquestionably,
by his return to country air. His coat stared less. He car-
ried his ears and tail with more sprlghtliness and conviction.
Still he fretted after his absent master, and followed Kather-
ine's footsteps very closely, his forehead more than ever
wrinkled, and his unsightly mouth pensive notwithstanding its
perpetual grin. He attended her now, squatting beside her
when she paused, trotting slowly beside her when she moved,
a silent, persistent, and, as it might seem, somewhat fatefully
faithful companion.

Yet the occasion was to all appearances far from fateful, the
night and the scene, alike, being very fair. The moon had
not yet risen, but a brightness behind the sawlike edge of the
fir woods eastward heralded its coming, while sufiicient light
yet remained in the western and northern sky for the mass of
the house, its ruddy walls and ranges of mullioned windows,
its pierced, stone parapet and stacks of slender, twisted chim-
neys, to be seen with a low-toned distinctness of form and
colour infinitely charming. Soft and rich as velvet, it rose,
with a certain noble serenity, above its terraces and fragrant,
red-walled gardens, under the enormous dome of the tranquil,
far-off, evening sky.

Every aspect of this place. In rain and shine, summer and
winter, from dawn to dark and round to dawn again, was
familiar to Katherine Calmady. Coming here first, as a bride,
the homely splendour of the house, and the gladness of Its sit-
uation crowning the ridge of hill, appealed strongly to her
imagination. Later it sheltered her long sorrow, following so
hard on the heels of her brief joy. But in both alike, during
all the vicissitudes of her thought and of her career, the face
of Brockhurst remained as that of a friend, kindly, beneficent,

388 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

increasingly trusted and beloved. And so she had come to
know every stick and stone of it, from spacious, vaulted cellar
to equally spacious, low-roofed, sun-dried attic — the outlook
from each window, the character of each room, the turn of
each stairway, the ample proportions of each lobby and stair-
head, all the pleasant scents, and sounds, and colours, that
haunted it both within and without. It might have been sup-
posed that after so many years of affectionate observation and
commerce, Brockhurst could have no new word in its tongue,
could hold no further self-revelation, for Lady Calmady. Yet,
as she passed now from the arcaded garden-hall, supporting
the eastern bay of the Long Gallery, on to the level, green
square of the troco-ground, and stood gazing out over the
downward sloping park — the rough, short turf of it dotted
with ancient thorn trees and broken by beds of bracken and
dog-roses — to the Long Water, glistening like some giant
mirror some quarter-mile distant in the valley, she became
sensible of a novel element in her present relation to this
place.

For the first time, in all her long experience, she was at
Brockhurst quite alone. The house was vacant even of a
friend. For Julius March had, rather to Katherine's surprise,
selected just this moment for the paying of his yearly visit to
a certain college friend, a scholarly and godly person, now
rector of a sleepy, country parish away in the heart of the
great, Midlandshire grasslands. Katherine experienced a
momentary sense of injury at his going. Yet perhaps it was
as well. Between the turmoil of the past London season, the
coming turmoil of the wedding, and the large and serious
issues which that wedding involved, this time of solitude
might be salutary. To Katherine, just now, it seemed as a
bridge carrying her over from one way of life to another. A
but slightly known country lay ahead. Solitude and self-rec-
ollection are good for the soul if it would possess itself in
peace. The fair brightness of the Indwelling Light had not
been obscured in her during these months devoted to the
world and to society. But it was inevitable that her con-
sciousness of it, and consequently its clear-shining, should
have suffered diminution at times. The eager pressure of
things to be done, things to be seen, of much conversation,
the varied pageant of modern life perpetually presented to her

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 389

eyes and her intelligence, could not but crowd out the spiritual
order somewhat. Of late she had had only time to smile
upon her God in passing, instead of spending long hours
within the courts of His temple. —This she knew. It troub-
led her a little. She desired to return to a condition of more
complete self-collectedness. And so, the first movement of
surprise past, she hailed her solitude as a means of grace, and
strove, in sweet sincerity, to make good use of it.

And yet — since the human heart, if sound and wholesome,
hungers, even when penetrated by Godward devotion, for
some fellow-creature on whom to expend its tenderness —
Katherlne, just now, regretted to be alone. The scene was
so beautiful, she would gladly have had some one look on it
beside herself, and share its charm. Then thoughts of the
future obtruded themselves. How would little Constance
Quayle view Brockhurst ? Would it claim her love ? Would
she embrace the spirit of it, and make it not only the home of
her fair young body, but the home of her guileless heart ?
Katherine yearned in spirit over this girl standing on the
threshold of all the deeper experiences of a woman's life, of
those amazing revelations which marriage holds for an inno-
cent and modest maiden. — But oh ! how lovely are such reve-
lations when the lover is also the beloved !

Katherine moved on a few paces. The thought of all that,
even now at forty-eight, cut her a little too sharply. It is not
wise to call up visions of joys that are dead. She would think
of something else, so she told herself, as she paused in her
rustling gray dress upon the dry, gravel path, the surface of
which still sensibly held the warmth of the sun, while Camp
squatted soberly on his haunches beside her. But, at first,
only worrying thoughts responded to her call. — It was not
quite kind, surely, of Julius to have left home just now. It
was a little inconsiderate of him. If she dwelt on the thought
o* that, clearly it would vex her — so it must be banished.
Reynolds, the housekeeper, had really been very perverse
Hbort the turning of the two larger china-closets into extra
dressing-rooms for the week of the wedding, and Clara showed
an inclination to back her up in opposition. Of course the
maids would give in — they always did, and that without any
subsequent attempt at small reprisals. Still the thought of
that, too, was annoying and must be banished. At dinner she

390 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

had received a singular letter from Honoria St. Quentin. It
contained what appeared to Katherine as rather over-urgent
protestations of affection and offers of service, if at any future
time she — the writer — could be of use. The letter was
charming in its slight extravagance. But it struck Katherine
2i9 incomprehensibly penitent in tone — the letter of one who
y as not treated a friend quite loyally and is hot with anxiety
o atone. It was dated this morning too, and must have been
posted at some surprisingly early hour to have thus reached
Brockhurst by the day mail. Lady Calmady did not quite
relish the missive, somehow, notwithstanding its affection. It
lacked the perfection of personal dignity which had pleased
her heretofore in Honoria St. Quentin. She felt vaguely dis-
appointed. And it followed that this thought, therefore, must
go along with the rest. For she refused to be disquieted.
She would compel herself to be at peace.

So, putting these small sources of discomfort from her, as
unworthy both of her better understanding and of this fair
hour and fair place, Katherine yielded herself wholly to the
influences of her surroundings. The dew was rising — prom-
ise of another hot, clear day to-morrow — and along with it
rose a fragrance of wild thyme from the grass slopes immedi-
ately below. That fragrance mingled with the richer scents
of jasmine, full-cupped, July roses, scarlet, trumpet-flowered
honeysuckle, tall lilies, and great wealth of heavy-headed,
clove carnations, veiling the red walls or set in the trim bor-
ders of the gardens behind. A strangely belated nightingale
still sang in the big, Portugal laurel beside the quaint, pepper-
pot summer-house in the far corner of the troco-ground,
where the twenty-foot brick wall dips, in steps of well-set
masonry, to the gray three-foot balustrade. She never remem-
bered to have heard one sing so late in the summer. The
bird was answered moreover by another singer from the cop-
pice, bordering the trout-stream which feeds the Long Water,
away across the valley. In each case the song was, note for
note, the same. But the chant of the near bird was hotly
urgent in its passion of "wooing and winning," while the
song of the answerer came chastened and etherealised by dis-
tance. A fox barked sharply on the left, out in the Warren.
And the churring of the night-jars, as they flitted hither and
thither over the beds of bracken and dog-roses, like gigantic

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 391

moths, on swift, silent wings, formed a continuous accom-
paniment, as of a spinning-wheel, to the other sounds.

Never, as she watched and listened, had the genius of
Brockhurst appeared more potent or more enthralling. For a
space she rested in it, asking nothing beyond that which sight
and hearing could give. It was very good to breathe the
scented air and be lulled by the inarticulate music of nature.
It was good to cease from self and from all individual striving,
to become a part merely of the universal movement of things,
a link merely in the mighty chain of universal being. But
such an impersonal attitude of mind cannot last long, least of
all in the case of a woman ! Katherine's heart awoke and
cried again for some human object on which to expend itself,
some kindred intelligence to meet and reflect her own. Ah,
were she but better, more holy and more wise, these cravings
would doubtless not assail her ! The worship of the Indwell-
ing Light would suffice, and she would cease from desire of
the love of any creature. But she had not journeyed so far
upon the road of perfection yet, as she sadly told herself.
Far from it. The nightingale sang on, sang of love, not far
hence, not far above, not within the spirit only, but here,
warm, immediate, and individual. And, do what she would,
the song brought to her mind such love, as she herself had
known it during the few golden months of her marriage — of
meetings at night, sweet and sacred, of partings, sweet and
sacred too, at morning, of secret delights, of moments, at once
pure and voluptuous, known only to virtuous lovers. It was
not often that remembrance of all this came back to her, save
as a faint echo of a once clear-sounding voice. Indeed she
had supposed it all laid away forever, done with, even as the
bright colours it had once so pleased her to wear were laid
away in high mahogany presses that lined one side of the lofty
state-bedroom up-stairs. But now remembrance laid violent
hands on her, shaking both mind and body from their calm.
The passion of the bird's song, the caressing suavity of the
summer night, the knowledge, too, that so soon another bride,
and bridegroom would dwell here at Brockhurst, worked upon^
her strangely. She struggled with herself, surprised and half
angered by the force of her own emotion, and pleaded at
once against, and for, the satisfaction of the immense nostalgia .
which possessed her.

392 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Ah ! it is bitter, very bitter, to have had at once so much
and so little. Bow my proud neck, O Lord, to Thy yoke.
If my beloved had but been spared to me I had never walked
in darkness, far from the way of faith, and my child had never
suffered bodily disfigurement. Perfect me, O God, even at
the cost of further suffering. It is sad to be shut away from
the joys of my womanhood, while my life is still strong in me.
Break me, O Lord, even as the ploughshare breaks the re-
luctant clod. Hold not Thy hand till the work be fully ac-
complished, and the earth be ready for the sowing which makes
for harvest. Give me back the beloved of my youth, the be-
loved of my life, if only for an hour. Teach me to submit.
Show me, beyond all dread of contradiction that vows, truly
made, hold good even in that mysterious world beyond the
grave. Show me that though the body — dear home and vehi-
cle of love — may die, yet love in its essence remains everlast-
ingly conscious, faithful and complete. Bend my will to
harmony with Thine, O Lord, and cleanse me of self-seeking.
Ah! but still let me see his face once again, once again, oh,
my God — and I will rebel no more. Let me look on him,
once again, if only for a moment, and I shall be content.
Hear me, I. am greatly troubled, I am athirst — I faint "

Katherine's prayer, which had risen into audible speech,
sank away into silence. The near nightingale had fallen silent
also. But from across the valley, chastened and etherealised
by distance, still came the song of the answering bird. To
Katherine those fine and delicate notes were full of promise.
They bore testimony to the soul which dwells forever behind
the outward aspect and sense. Whether she fainted in good
jtruth, or whether she passed, for a while, into that sublimated
state of consciousness wherein the veils of habit cease to blind
and something of the eternal essence and values of things is
revealed, perception overstepping, for once, the limits of ordi-
nary, earth-bound apprehension and transcending ordinary cir-
cumscription of time and place, she could not tell. Nor did
she greatly care. For a great peace descended upon her, ac-
companied by a gentle, yet penetrating expectancy. She stood
very still, her feet set on the warm gravel, the night air
wrapping her about as with a fragrant garment, the ghostly
sweetness of that far-away bird-song in her ears, while mo-
ipentarily the conviction of the near presence of the man who

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 393

had so loved her, and whom she had so loved, deepened within
her. And therefore it was without alarm, without any shock
of amazement, that gradually she found her awareness of that
presence change from something felt, to something actually seen.

He came towards her — that first Richard Calmady, her hus-
band and lover — across the smooth, green levels of the troco-
ground which lay dusky in the mingling half-lights of the
nearly departed sunset and the rising moon, as he had come to
her a hundred times in life, back from the farms or the moor-
lands, from sport or from business, or from those early morn-
ing rides, the clean freshness of the morning upon him, after
seeing his race-horses galloped. He came bareheaded, in easy
workmanlike garments, short coat, breeches, long boots and
spurs. He came with the repose of movement which is born
of a well-knit frame, and a temperate life, and the grace of
gentle blood. He came with the half smile on his lips, and
the gladness in his eyes when they first met hers, which had
always been there however brief the parting. And Katherine
perceived it was just thus our beloved dead must needs return
to us — should they return at all — laying aside the splendours
of the spirit in tenderness for mortal weakness. Even as the
Christ laid aside the visible glory of the Godhead, and came a
babe among men, so must they come in humble, every-day
fashion, graciously taking on the manner and habit common to
them during earthly life. Therefore she suffered no shrink-
ing, but turned instinctively, as she had turned a hundred
times, laughing very softly in the fulness of content, raising
her hands, throwing back her head, knowing that he would
come behind her and take her hands in his, and kiss her, so,
tbending down over her shoulder. And, when he came, she
did not need to speak, but only to gaze into the well-beloved
face, fanailiar, yet touched — as it seemed to her — with a mys-
terious and awful beauty, beholding which she divined the
answer to many questions.

For she perceived, as one waking from an uneasy dream
perceives the comfortable truth of day, that her love was not
^iven back to her, for the dear reason that her love had never
been taken away. The fiction of Time ceased to rule in her,
so that the joy of bride and new-wed wife, the strange, sweet
perplexities of dawning motherhood were with her now, not as
memories merely, but as actual, ever present, deathless fact — •

394 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the culminating, and therefore permanent, revelation of her
individual experience. She perceived this continued and must
continue, since it v^as the fine flower of her nature, the unit
of her personal equation, the realisation of the eternal purpose
concerning her of Almighty God. This fiction of old age was
discredited, so was the bitterness of deposition, the mournful
fiction of being passed by and relegated to the second place.
Her place was her own. Her standing ground in the uni-
versal order, a freehold, absolute and inalienable. She could
not abdicate her throne, neither could any wrest it away from
her. She perceived that not self-efFacement, but self-develop-
ment, not dissolution, but evolution, was the service required
of her. And, as divinely designed contribution to that end
was every joy, every sorrow, laid upon her, since by these was
she differentiated from all others, by these was she built up
into a separate existence, sane, harmonious, well-proportioned,
a fair lamp lighted with a burning coal from ofi^ the altar of
that God of whom it is written, not only that He is a consum-
ing fire, but that He is Love.

All this, and more, did Katherine apprehend, beholding the
familiar, yet mysterious countenance of her well-beloved. And
the tendency of that apprehension made for tranquillity of
spirit, for a sure and certain hope. The faculty which reasons,
demands explanation and proof, might not be satisfied, but that
higher faculty which divines, accepts, believes, assuredly was
so. Nor could it be otherwise, since it is the spirit, the idea,
not the letter, which giveth life.

How long she stood thus, in tender and illuminating, though
wordless, communion with the dead, Katherine did not know.
The deepest spiritual experiences, like the most exquisite
physical ones, are to be measured by intensity rather than dura-
tion. For a space the vision sensibly held her, the so ardently
desired presence there incontestibly beside her, a personality
vivid and distinct, yet in a way remote, serene as the immense
dome of the cloudless sky, chastened and etherealised as the
song of the answering nightingale, and in this differing from
any bodily presence, as the song in question differed from that
of the bird in the laurel close at hand.

Gradually, and with such sense of refreshment as one en-
joys who, bathing in some clear stream at evening, washes
away all soil and sweat of a weary journey, Katherine awake

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 395

to more ordinary observation of her material surroundings.
She became aware that the dog, Camp, had turned singularly
restless. He slunk away as though wishing to avoid her near
neighbourhood, crawled back to her, with dragging hind quar-
ters, cringing and whining as though in acute distress. And,
by degrees, another sound obtruded itself, speaking of haste
and efFort, notably at variance with the delicate and gracious
stillness. It came from the highroad crossing the open moor,
which loomed up a dark, straight ridge against the southern
horizon. It came in rising and falling cadence, but ever nearer
and nearer, increasingly distinct, increasingly urgent — the fast,
steady trot of a horse. The moon, meanwhile, had swept
clear of the saw-like edge of the fir forest, and, while the thin,
white light of it broadened upon the dewy grass and the beat
of the horse-hoofs rang out clearer and clearer, Katherine was
aware that the dear vision faded and grew faint. As it had
■come, softly, without amazement or fear, so it departed, with-
out agitation or sadness of farewell, leaving Katherine pro-
foundly consoled, the glory of her womanhood restored to her
in the indubitable assurance that what had been of necessity
continued, and forever was.

And, therefore, she still listened but idly to the approaching
sound, not reckoning with it as yet, though the roll of wheels
was now added to the rapid beat of the hoofs of the trotting
Jiorse. It had turned down over the hillside by the crossroad
leading to the upper lodge. Suddenly it ceased. The shout
of a man's voice, loud and imperative, a momentary pause,
then the clang of heavy, iron gates swinging back into place,
and once again the roll of wheels and that steady, urgent,
determined trot, coming nearer and nearer down the elm
avenue, whose stately rows of trees looked as though made of
ebony and burnished silver in the slanting moonlight. On it
came across the bridge spanning the glistering whiteness of
the Long Water. And on again steadily, and no less rapidly,
as though pressed by the hand of a somewhat merciless driver,
hot to arrive, bearer of stirring tidings, up the steeply ascend-
ing hill to the house.

Lady Calmady listened, beginning to question whom this
nocturnal disturber of the peace of Brockhurst might be. But
only vaguely as yet, since that which she had recently ex-
perienced was so great, so wide-reaching in its meaning and

396 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

promise, that, for the moment, it dwarfed all other possible,
all other imaginable, events. The gracious tranquillity which
enveloped her could not be penetrated by any anxiety or pre-
monition of momentous happenings as yet. It was not so,
however, with Camp. For a spirit of extravagant and un-
reasoning excitement appeared to seize on the dog. Forgetful
of age, of stifF limbs and short-coming breath, he gamboled
round Lady Calmady, describing crazy circles upon the grass,
and barking until the unseemly din echoed back harshly from
against the great red and gray facade. He fawned upon her,
abject, yet compelling, and, at last, as though exasperated by
her absence of response, turned tail and bounded away through
the garden-hall and along the terrace, disappearing through the
small, arched side-door into the house. And there, within,
stir and movement became momentarily more apparent.
Shifting lights flashed out through the many-paned windows,
as though in quick search of some eagerly desired presence.

Nevertheless, for a little space, Katherine lingered, the
fragrance of the wild thyme and of the fair gardens still about
her, the somnolent churring of the night-jars and faint notes
of the nightingale's song still saluting her ears. It was so
difficult to return to and cope with the demands of ordinary
life. For had she not been caught up into the third heaven
and heard words unspeakable, unlawful, in their entirety, for
living man to utter?

But things terrestrial, in this case as in so many other cases,
refused to make large room for, or brook delay from, things
celestial. Two servants came out, hurriedly, from that same
arched side-door. Then Clara, that devoted handmaiden,
called from the window of the red drawing-room.

" Her ladyship's there, on the troco-ground. Don't you
see, Mr. Winter ? "

The butler hurried along the terrace. Katherine met him
on the steps of the garden-hall.

"Is anything wrong. Winter? " she asked kindly, for the
trusted servant betrayed unusual signs of emotion. " Am I
wanted ? "

"Sir Richard has returned, my lady," he said, and his voice
trembled. "Sir Richard is in the Gun-Room. He gave
orders that your ladyship should be told that he would be glad
to speak to you immediately."

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 397

CHAPTER IX

IN WHICH DICKIE SHAKES HANDS WITH THE DEVIL

"IV/TY dear, this is quite unexpected."

^ Lady Calmady's tone was one of quiet, innate joy-

ousness. A gentle brightness pervaded her whole aspect and
manner. She looked wonderfully young, as though the hands
of the clock had been put back by some twenty and odd years.
Every line had disappeared from her face, and in her eyes was
a clear shining very lovely to behold. Richard glanced at her
as she came swiftly towards him across the room. Then he
looked down again, and answered deliberately : —

"Yes, it is, as you say, quite unexpected. This time last
night I as little anticipated being back here as you anticipated
my coming. But one's plans change rapidly and radically at
times. Mine have done so."

He sat at the large, library writing-table, a pile of letters,
papers, circulars before him, judged unworthy of forwarding,
which had accumulated during his absence. He tore off
wrappers, tore open envelopes, quickly yet methodically, as
though bending his mind with conscious determination to the
performance of a self-inflicted task. Looking at the contents
of each in turn, with an odd mixture of indifference and close
attention, he flung the major part into the waste-paper basket
set beside his revolving-chair, A tall, green-shaded lamp shed
a circle of vivid light upon the silver and maroon leather fur-
nishings of the writing-table, upon the young man's bent
head, and upon his restless hands as they grasped, and
straightened, and then tore, with measured if impatient pre-
cision, the letters and papers lying before him.

Lady Calmady stood resting the tips of her fingers on the
corner of the table, looking down at him with those clear
shining eyes. His reception of her had not been demonstra-
tive, but of that she was hardly sensible. The reconciling as-
surances of faith, the glories of the third heaven, still dazzled
her somewhat. Her feet hardly touched earth yet, so that her

398 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

mother-love and all its sensitive watchfulness was, as yet,
somewhat in abeyance. She spoke again with the same quiet
joyousness of tone.

" You should have telegraphed to me, dearest, and then all
would have been ready to welcome you. As it is, I fear, you
must feel yourself a trifle neglected. I have been, or have
fancied myself, mightily busy all day — foolishly cumbered
about much serving — and had gone out to forget maids, and
food, and domesticities generally, into the dear garden.'' — She
paused, smiling. " Ah ! it is a gracious night," she said, " full
of inspiration. You must have enjoyed the drive home. The
household refuses to take this marriage of yours philosophic-
ally, Dickie, It demands great magnificence, quite as much,
be sure, for its own glorification as for yours. It also multi-
plies small difficulties, after the manner of well-conducted
households, as I imagine, since the world began."

Richard tore the prospectus of a mining company, offering
wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, right across with a cer-
tain violence.

" Oh, well, the household may forego its magnificence and
cease from the multiplication of small difficulties alike, as far as
any marriage of mine is concerned. You can tell the household
so to-morrow, mother, or I can. Perhaps the irony of the posi-
tion would be more nicely pointed by the announcement com-
ing directly from myself. That would heighten the drama."

" But, Dickie, my dearest ? " Katherine said, greatly per-
plexed.

" The whole affair is at an end. Lady Constance Quayle
is not going to marry me, and I am not going to marry Lady
Constance Quayle. On that point at least she and I are entirely
at one. All London will know this to-morrow. Perhaps Brock-
hurst, in the interest of its endangered philosophy, had better
know it to-night."

Richard leaned forward, opening, tearing, sorting the papers
again. A rasping quality was in his voice and speech, hitherto
unknown to his mother, a cold, imperious quality in his man-
ner, also, new to her. And these brought her down to earthy
setting her feet thereon uncompromisingly. And the earth on
which they were thus set was, it must be owned, rather ugly. A
woman made of weaker stuff would have cried out against such
sudden and painful declension. But Katherine, happily both

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 399

for herself and for those about her, waking even from dreams
of noble and far-reaching attainment, waked with not only her
wits, but her heart, in steady action. Yet she in nowise went
back on the revelation that had been vouchsafed to her. It
was in nowise disqualified or rendered suspect, because the
gamut of human emotion proved to have more extended range
and more jarring discords than she had yet reckoned with.
Her mind was large enough to make room for novel experience
in sorrow, as well as in joy, retaining the while its poise and
sanity. Therefore she, recognising a new phase in the
development of her child, without hesitation or regret of self-
love for the disturbance of her own gladness braced herself to
meet it. His pride had been wounded — somehow, she knew
not how — to the very quick. And the smart of that wound
was too shrewd, as yet, for any precious balms of articulate
tenderness to soothe it. She must give it time to heal a little,
meanwhile setting herself scrupulously to respect his dark
humour, meet his pride with pride, his calm with at least equal
calmness.

She drew a chair up to the end of the table, and settled her-
self to listen quite composedly.

" It will be well, dearest," she said, " that you should ex-
plain to me clearly what has happened. To do so may avert
possible complications."

Richard's hands paused among the papers. He regarded
Lady Calmady reflectively, not without a grudging admiration.
But an evil spirit possessed him, a necessity of mastery — in-
•evitable reaction from recently endured humiliation — which
provoked him to measure his strength against hers. He needed
a sacrifice to propitiate his anger. That sacrifice must be in
some sort a human one. So he deliberately pulled the tall
lamp nearer, and swung his chair round sideways, leaning his
elbow on the table, with the result that the light rested on his
face. It did more. It rested upon his body, upon his legs and
feet, disclosing the extent of their deformity.

Involuntarily Katherine shrank back. It was as though he
had struck her. Morally, indeed, he had struck her, for there
was a cynical callousness in this disclosure, in this departure
from his practice of careful and self-respecting concealment.
Meanwhile Richard watched her, as, shrinking, her eyelids
•drooped and quivered.

400 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Mother," he said, quietly and imperatively. — And when,
not without perceptible effort, she again raised her eyes to his,
he went on : — " I quite agree with you that it will be well foi*
me to explain with a view to averting possible complications-
It has become necessary that we should clearly understand one
another — at least that you, my dear mother, should understand
my position fully and finally. We have been too nice, you
and I, heretofore, and, the truth being very far from nice, have
expended much trouble and ingenuity in our efforts to ignore
it. We went up to London in the fond hope that the world
at large would support us in our self-deception. So it did, for
a time. But, being in the main composed of very fairly
honest and sensible persons, it has grown tired of sentimental
lying, of helping us to bury our heads ostrich-like in th^ sand.
It has gone over to the side of truth — that very far from flatter-
ing or pretty truth to which I have just alluded — with thij* result,
among others, that my engagement has come to an abrupt and
really rather melodramatic conclusion."

He paused.

" Go on, Richard," Lady Calmady said, " I am listt-ning."

He drew himself up, sitting very erect, keeping his eyes
steadily fixed on her, speaking steadily and coldly, though his
lips twitched a little.

" Lady Constance did me the honour to call on me last
night, rather later than this, absenting herself in the very thick
of Lady Louisa Barking's ball for that purpose."

Katherine moved slightly, her dress rustled.

" Yes — considering her character and her training it was jl
rather surprising demarche on her part, and bore convincing
testimony to her agitation of mind."

'^ Did she come alone ? "

Richard lapsed into an easier position.

"Oh, dear no ! " he said. "Allowing for the desperation
which dictated her proceedings, they were carried out in a
very regular manner, with a praiseworthy regard for appear-
ances. Lady Constance is, in my opinion, a very sweet per-
son. She is perfectly modest and has an unusual regard — as
women go — for honour and duty — as women understand
them." — Again his voice took on that rasping quality. " She
brought a friend, a young lady, with her. Fortunately there
was no occasion for me to speak to her — she had the good

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 401

taste to efface herself during our interview. But I saw her in
the hall afterwards. I shall always remember that y^y dis-
tinctly. So, I imagine, will she. Then Lord Shotover waited
outside with the carriage. Oh ! believe me, admitting its in-
herent originality, the affair was conducted with an admirable
regard for appearances."

Again the regular flow of Richard's speech was broken.
His throat had gone very dry.

" Lady Constance appealed to me in extremely moving
terms, articulate and otherwise, to set her free."

" To set her free — and upon what grounds ? "

" Upon the rather crude, but preeminently sensible grounds,
my dear mother, that after full consideration, she found the
bid was not high enough."

" Indeed," Katherine said.

" Yes, indeed, my dear mother," Richard repeated. " Does
that surprise you ? It quite ceased to surprise me, when she
pointed out the facts of the case. For she was touchingly
sincere. I respected her for that. The position was an un-
gracious one for her. She has a charming nature, and really
wanted to spare me just as much as was possible along with
the gaining of her cause. Her gift of speech is limited, you
know, but then no degree of eloquence or diplomacy could
have rendered that which she had to say agreeable to my
self-esteem. Oh ! on the whole she did it very well, very con-
clusively."

Richard raised his head, pausmg a moment. Again that dry-
ness of the throat checked his utterance. And then, recalling
the scene of the past night, a great wave of unhappiness, pure
and simple, of immense disappointment, immense self-disgust
broke over him. His anger, his outraged pride, came near
being swamped by it. He came near losing his bitter self-
control and crying aloud for help. But he mastered the in-
clination, perhaps unfortunately, and continued speaking.

" Yes, decidedly, with the exception of Ludovic, that family
do not possess ready tongues, yet they contrive to make their
meaning pretty plain in the end. I have just driven over from
Whitney, and am fresh from a fine example of eventual plain
speaking from that excellent father of the family. Lord Fallow-
feild. It was instructive. For the main thing, after all, as
we must both agree, mother, is to understand oneself clearly

402 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

and to make oneself clearly understood. And in this respect
you and I, Pm afraid, have failed a good deal. Blinded by our
own fine egoism we have even failed altogether to understand
others. Lady Constance, for instance, possesses very much
more character than it suited us to credit her with."

" You are harsh, dearest," Katherine murmured, and her
lips trembled.

" Not at all," he answered. " I have only said good-bye to
lying. Can you honestly deny, my dear mother, that the
whole affair was just one of convenience ? I told you — it
strikes me now as a rather brutally primitive announcement —
that I wanted a wife because I wanted a son — a son to prove
to me the entirety of my own manhood, a son to give me at
second hand certain obvious pleasures and satisfactions which
I am debarred, as you know, from obtaining at first hand.
You engaged to find me a bride. Poor, little Lady Constance
Quayle, unfortunately for her, appeared to meet our require-
ments, being pretty and healthy, and too innocent and unde-
veloped to suspect the rather mean advantage we proposed to
take of her. — What ? I know it sounds rather gross stated
thus plainly. But, the day of lies being over, dare you deny
it ? — Well then, we proceeded to traffic for this desirable bit
of young womanhood, of prospective maternity, — to buy her
from such of her relations as were perverted enough to coun-
tenance the transaction, just as shamelessly as though we had
gone into the common bazar, after the manner of the cynical
East, and bargained for her, poor child, in fat-tailed sheep or
cowries. Doesn't it appear to you almost incredible, almost
infamous that we — you and I, mother — should have done this
thing ? The price we ofFered seemed sufficient to some of
her people — not to all, I have learned that past forgetting to-
day, thanks to Lord Fallowfeild's thick-headed, blundering
veracity. But, thank heaven, she had more heart, more sensi-
bility, more self-respect, more decency, than we allowed for*
She plucked up spirit enough to refuse to be bought and sold
like a pedigree filly or heifer. I think that was rather heroic,
considering her traditions and the pressure which had been
brought to bear to keep her silent. I can only honour and
reverence her for coming to tell me frankly, though at the
eleventh hour, that she preferred a man of no particular posi-
tion or fortune, but with the ordinary complement of limbs.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 403

to Brockhurst, and the house in London, and my forty to
forty-five thousand a year, plus "

Richard laughed savagely, leaning forward, spreading out
his arms.

" Well, my dear mother, — since as I say the day of lies is
over, — plus the remnant of a human being you may see here,
at this moment, if you will only have the kindness to look ! "

At first Katherine had listened in mute surprise, bringing
her mind, not without difliculty, into relation to the immediate
and the present. Then watchful sympathy had been aroused,
then anxiety, then tenderness, denying itself expression since
the time for it was not yet ripe. But as the minutes length-
ened and the flow of Richard's speech not only continued, but
gained in volume and in force, sympathy, anxiety, tenderness,
were merged in an emotion of ever-deepening anguish, so that
she sat as one who contemplates, spellbound, a scene of veri-
table horror. From regions celestial to regions terrestrial she
had been hurried with rather dislocating suddenness. But her
sorry journey did not end there. For hardly were her feet
planted on solid earth again, than the demand came that she
should descend still further — to regions sub-terrestrial, regions
frankly infernal. And this descent to hell, though rapid to the
point of astonishment, was by no means easy. Rather was it
violent and remorseless — a driving as by reiterated blows, a
rude merciless dragging onward and downward. Yet even so,
for all the anguish and shame — as of unseemly exposure — the
perversion of her intention and action, the scorn so ruthlessly
poured upon her, it was less of herself, the compelled, than of
Richard, the compelling, that she thought. For even while
his anger thus drove and dragged her, he himself was tortured
in the flame far below, — so it seemed, and that constituted the
finest sting of her agony — beyond her power to reach or help.
She, after all, but stood on the edge of the crater, watching.
He fought, right down in the molten waves of it — fought
with himself, too, more fiercely even than he fought with her.
So that now, as years ago waiting outside the red drawing-
room, hearing the stern, peremptory tones of the surgeons,
the moan of unspeakable physical pain, the grating of a saw,
picturing the dismemberment of the living body she so loved,
Katherine was tempted to run a little mad and beat her beauti-
ful head against the wall. But age, while taking no jot or

404 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

tittle from the capacity of suffering, still, in sane and healthy
natures, brings a certain steadiness to the brain and coolness to
the blood. Therefore Katherine sat very still and silent, her
sweet eyes half closed, her spirit bowed in unspoken prayer
Surely the all-loving God, who, but a brief hour ago, had
vouchsafed her the fair vision of the delight of her youth,
would ease his torment and spare her son ?

And, all the while, outward nature remained reposeful and
gracious in aspect as ever. The churring of the night-jars,
the occasional bark of the fox in the Warren, the song of the
answering nightingales, wandered in at the open casements.
And, along with these, came the sweetness of the beds of wild
thyme from the grass slopes, and the rich, languid scent of the
blossom of the little, round-headed, orange trees set, in green
tubs below the carven guardian griffins, on the flight of steps
leading up to the main entrance. That which had been
lovely, continued lovely still. And, therefore perhaps, — she
could hope it even in the fulness of her anguish, — the gates
of hell might stand open to ascending as well as descending
feet and so that awful road might at last — at last — be retraced
by this tormented child of hers, whom, though he railed
against her, she still supremely loved.

But Richard, whether actually or intentionally it would be
difficult to say, misinterpreted and resented her silence and ap-
parent calm. He waited for a time, his eyes fastened upon
her half-averted face. Then he picked up one of the remain-
ing packets from the table, tore off the wrapper, glanced at the
contents, stretched out his left arm holding the said contents
suspended over the waste-paper basket.

" Yes, it is evident," he declared, " even you do not care to
look ! Well, then, must you not admit that you and I have
been guilty of an extravagance of fatuous folly, and worse, in
seriously proposing that a well-born, sensitive girl should not
only look at, habitually and closely, but take for all her chance
in life a crippled dwarf like me — an anomaly, a human curi-
osity, a creature so unsightly that it must be carried about like
any baby-in-arms, lest its repulsive ungainliness should sicken
the bystanders if, leaving the shelter of a railway-rug and an
armchair, it tries — unhappy brute — to walk ? — Oh ! Pm not
angry with her. I don't blame her. Pm not surprised. I
agree with her down to the ground. I sympathise and com-

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LiP 405.

prehend — no man more. I told her so last night — only
amazed at the insane egoism that coula ever have induced me
to view the matter in any other light. Women are generally
disposed to be hard on one another. But if you, my dear
mother, should be in any degree tempted to be hard on Con-
stance Quayle, I beg you to consider your ow^n engagement,
your own marriage, my father's "

Here Katherine interrupted him, rising in sudden revolt.

" No, no, Richard," she said, '' that is more, my dear, than
I can either permit or can bear. If you have any sort of
mercy left in you, do not bring your father's name, and that
which lies between him and me, into this hideous conversa-
tion."

The young man looked hard at her, and then opening his
hand, let the pieces of torn paper flutter down into the basket.
It was done with a singularly measured action, symbolic of
casting off some last tie, severing some last link, which bound
his life and his allegiance to his companion.

" Yes, exactly," he said. " As I expected, the day of lying
being over, you as good as own it an outrage to your taste, and
your affections, that so frightful a thing, as I am, should ven-
ture to range itself alongside your memories of your husband.
Out of your own mouth are you judged, my dear mother.
And, if I am thus to you, upon whom, after all, I have some
natural claim, what must I be to others ? Think of it !
What indeed ? "

Katherine made no attempt to answer. Perception of the
grain of truth which seriisoned the vast, the glaring, injustice
of his accusations unnerved her. His speech was ingeniously
cruel. His humour such, that it was vain to protest. And
the hopelessness of it all affected her to the point of physical
weakness. She moved across the room, intending to gain the
door and go, for it seemed to her the limit of her powers of
endurance had been reached. But her strength would not
carry her so far. She stumbled on the upturned corner of the
shining, tiger-skin rug, recovered herself trembling, and laid
hold of the high, narrow, marble shelf of the chimneypiece
for support. She must rest a little lest her strength should
wholly desert her, and she should fall before reaching the
door.

Behind her, within the circle of lamplight, Richard 'e-

4o6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

mained, still sorting, tearing, flinging away that which re-
mained of the pile of papers. This deft, persistent activity of
his, in its mixture of purpose and abstraction was agitating —
seeming, to Katherine's listening ears, as though it might go
on endlessly, until not only these waste papers, but all and
everything within his reach, things spiritual, things of the
heart, duties, obligations, gracious and tender courtesies, as
well as things merely material, might be thus relentlessly
scrutinised, judged worthless, rent asunder and cast forth.
What would be spared she wondered, what left ? And when
the work of destruction was completed, what would follow
next ? — Bracing herself, she turned, purposing to close the in-
terview by some brief pleading of indisposition and to escape.
But, as she did so, the sound of tearing ceased. Richard
slipped down from his place at the writing-table, and shuffling
across the room, flung himself down in the long, low arm-
chair on the opposite side of the fireplace.

" I don't want to detain you for an unreasonable length of
time, mother," he said. " We understand each other in the
main, I think, and that without subterfuge or self-deception at
last. But there are details to be considered, and, as I leave
here early to-morrow morning, I think you'll feel with me
it's desirable we should have our talk out. There are a good
many eventualities for which it's only reasonable and prudent
to make provision on the eve of an indefinitely long absence.
Practically a good many people are dependent on me, one way
and another, and I don't consider it honourable to leave their
affairs at loose ends, however uncertain my own future may
be."

Richard's voice had still that rasping quality, while his bear-
ing was instinct with a coldly dominating, and almost aggres-
sive, force. Katherine, though little addicted to fear, felt
strangely shaken, strangely alienated by the dead weight of
the personality, by perception of the innate and tremendous
vigour, of this being to whom she had given birth. She had
imagined, specially during the last few months of happy and
intimate companionship, that if ever mother knew her child,
she knew Richard— through and through. But it appeared
she had been mistaken. For here was a new Richard, at once
terrible and magnificent, regarding whom she could predicate
nothing with certainty. He defied her tenderness, he out-

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 407

|)aced her imagination, he paralysed her will. Between his
thoughts, desires, intentions, and hers, a blind blank space had
suddenly intruded itself, impenetrable to her thought. In per-
son he was here close beside her, in mind he was despairingly
far away. And to this last, not only his words, but his man-
ner, his expression, his singular, yet sombre, beauty, bore con-
vincing testimony. He had matured with an almost unnatural
rapidity, leaving her far behind. In his presence she felt diffi-
dent, mentally insecure, even as a child.

She remained standing, holding tightly to the narrow ledge
of the mantelpiece. She felt dazed and giddy as in face of
some upheaval, some cataclysm, of nature. In relation to her
son she was conscious, in truth, that her whole world had
suffered shipwreck.

" Where are you going, Dickie ? " she asked at last very
simply.

" Anywhere and everywhere where amusement, or even the
semblance of it, is to be had," he answered. — " Do you wish
to know how long I shall be away ? Just precisely as long
as amusement in any form offers itself, and as my power of
being amused remains to me. This strikes you as slightly
ignoble ? I am afraid that's a point, my dear mother, upon
which I 'am supremely indifferent. You and I have posed
rather extensively on the exalted side of things so far, have
strained at gnats and finished up by swallowing a remarkably
full-grown camel. This whole business of my proposed mar-
riage has been anything but graceful, when looked at in the
common-sense way in which most people, of necessity, look
at it. Lord Fallowfeild appealed to me against myself — which
appeared to me slightly humorous — as one man of the world
to another. That was an eye-opener. It was likewise a
profitable lesson. I promptly laid it to heart. And it is ex-
clusively from the point of view of the man of the world that
I propose to regard myself, and my circumstances, and my
personal peculiarities, in future. So, to begin with, if you
please, from this time forth, we put aside all question of mar-
riage in my case. We don't make any more attempts to buy
innocent and well-bred, young girls, inviting them to condone
my obvious disabilities in consideration of my little title and
my money."

Richard ceased to look at Lady Calmady. He looked away

4o8 SIR RICHARD CALM ADY

through the open window into the serene sky of the summer'
night, a certain hunger in his expression not altogether
pleasant to witness.

" Fortunately," he continued, with something between a
laugh and a sneer, " there is a mighty army of women — always
has been — who don't come under the head of innocent, young
girls, though some of them have plenty of breeding of a kind.
They attach no superstitious importance to the marriage cere-
mony. My position and money may obtain me consolations
in their direction."

Lady Calmady ceased to require the cold support of the
marble mantelshelf.

" It is unnecessary for us to discuss that subject, at least^
Richard," she said.

The young man turned his head again, looking full at her.
And again the distance that divided her from him became to
her cruelly apparent, while his strength begot in her a shrink-
ing of fear.

^' I am sorry," he replied, " but I can^t agree with you
there. It is inevitable that we should differ in the future, and
that you should frequently disapprove. I can't expect you to
emancipate yourself from prejudice, as I am already emanci-
pated. I am not sure I even wish that. Still, whatever the
future may bring forth, of this, my dear mother, I am deter-
mined to make a clean breast to-night, so that you shall never
have cause to charge me with lack of frankness or of attempt
to deceive you."

Yet, at the moment, the poor mother's heart cried out to be
deceived, if thereby it might be eased a little of suffering.
Then, a nobler spirit prevailing within her, Katherine rallied
her fortitude. Better he should be bound to her even by
cynical avowal of projected vice, than not bound at all.
Listening now, she gained the right — a bitter enough right —
to command a measure of his confidence in those still darker
days which, as she apprehended, only too certainly lay ahead.
So she answered calmly : —

" Go on, Richard. As you say we may differ in the
future. I may disapprove, but I can be silent. You are
right. It is better for us both that I should hear."

And once more the young man was compelled to yield her
a grudging admiration. His tone softened somewhat.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 409

" I don't like to see you stand, mother," he said. " Our
conversation may be prolonged. One never quite knows
what may crop up. You will be overtired. And to-morrow,
when I am gone, there will be things to do."

Lady Calmady drew forward the chair from the end of the
writing-table. Her back was towards the lamp, her face in
shadow. Of this she was glad. In a degree it lessened the
strain. The sweet, night air, coming in at the open case-
ments, fluttered the lace on her bodice, as with the touch of a
light, cool hand. Of this she was glad too. It was refresh-
ing, and she grew increasingly exhausted and physically weak.
Richard observed her, not without solicitude.

" I am afraid you are not well, mother," he said.

But Katherine shook her head, smiling upon him with
misty eyes and lips somewhat tremulous.

" I am always well," she replied. " Only to-night it has
been given me to scale heights and sound opposing depths,
and I am a little overcome by perplexity and by surprise. But
what does that signify ? I shall have plenty of time — too
much probably — in which to rest and range my ideas when —
you are gone, my dearest."

" You must not be here alone."

" Oh no ! People will visit me, no doubt, animated by kindly
wishes to lessen my solitude," she answered, still smiling.
Remembrance of Honoria St. Quentin's letter came to her
mind. Could it be that the girl had some inkling of what was
in store for her, and that this had inspired the slight over-
warmth of her protestations of affection ? — " Honoria would
always be ready to come, should I ask her," she said.

All solicitude passed from Richard's expression, all soften-
ing from his tone.

" By all means ask her. That would cap the climax, and
round the irony of the situation to admiration ! "

" Indeed ? Why ? " Katherine inquired, painfully in?
pressed by the renewed bitterness of his manner.

^' If you're fond of her that is convincingly suiHcient. She
and I have never been very sympathetic, but that's a detail. I
shall be gone. Therefore pray have her, or anybody else you
happen to fancy, so long as you do have some one. You
mustn't be here alone."

'^Julius remains faithful through all chances and changes."

410 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" But I imagine even Julius has sufficient social sense to
perceive that faithfulness may be a little out of place at this
juncture. At least I sincerely hope he'll perceive it, for
otherwise he will have to be made to do so — and that will be
a nuisance."

" Dickie, Dickie, what are you Implying ? " Lady Calmady
exclaimed. " By what strange and unlovely thoughts are you
possessed to-night ? "

" I am learning to look at things as the average man of the
world looks at them, that's all," he said. " We have been
too refined, you and I, to be self-critical, with the conse-
quence that we have allowed ourselves a considerable degree
of latitude in many directions. Julius' permanent residence
here ranks among the fine-fanciful disregardlngs of accepted
proprieties with which we have indulged ourselves. But
spades are to be called spades in future — at least by me. So,
for the very same reason that I go forth, like the average man
of the world, to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, do I
object to Julius, or any other man, being your guest during
my absence, unless you have some woman of your own posi-
tion in life living here with you. The levels In social matters
have changed, once and for all. I have come to a sane mind
and renounced the eccentric subterfuges and paltry hypocri-
sies, by means of which we have attempted, you and I, to
keep disagreeable facts at bay. Truth, naked and unabasha-
ble, is the only goddess I worship henceforth."

He leaned forward, laying his hands upon the arms of his
chair. His manner was harsh still. But all coldness had de-
parted from It, rather did a white heat of passion consume
him dreadful to witness.

" Yes, it is wisest to repeat that, so that, on your part, there
may be no excuse for any shadow of misapprehension. The
levels have altered. The old ones can never be restored. I
want to have you grasp this, mother — swallow it, digest it, so
that it passes into fibre and tissue of your every thought about
me. For an acutely, unscientific, an ingeniously unreasona-
ble, idea obtains widely among respectable, sentimental, so-
called religious persons, regarding those who are the victims
of disfiguring accident, or, like myself, are physically disgraced
from birth. Because we have been deprived of our natural
rights, because we have so abominably little, we are expected

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 411

to be slavishly grateful for the contemptible pittance that we
have. Because, slothfully, by His neglect, or, wantonly, for
His amusement, the Creator has tortured us, maiming, distort-
ing us up as a laughing-stock before all man and womankind
— because He has played a ghastly and brutal practical joke
on us, fixing the marks of low comedy in our living flesh and
bone — therefore we, forsooth, are to be more pious, more
clean-living, temperate, and discreet than the rest — to bow'.
amiably beneath the cross, gratefully to kiss the rod ! Those
irregularities of* conduct which are smiled at, and taken for
granted, in a man made after the normal, comely fashion, be-
come a scandal in the case of a poor, unhappy devil like me,
at which good people hold up their hands in horror. Faugh !
— I tell you I'm sick of such cowardly cant. A pretty ex-
ample the Almighty's set me of justice and mercy ! Hand-
some encouragement He has given me to be virtuous and
sober! Much I have for which to praise His holy name!
Arbitrarily, without excuse, or faintest show of antecedent
reason. He has elected to curse. And the curse will cling
forever and ever, till they lay me in a coffin nearly half as
short again as that of any other man, and leave the hideous-
ness of my deformity to be obliterated and purged at last —
eaten away by the worms in the dark."

Richard stretched out his hands, palms upward.

" And in return for all this shall I bless i No, indeed — no,
thank you. Not even towards God Almighty Himself will I
play the part of lick-spittle and sycophant. I have fine
enough stufF in me, let alone the energy begotten by the
flagrance of His injustice, to take higher grounds with Him
than that. I will break what men hold to be His laws,
wherever and whenever I can — I will make hay of His so-
called natural and moral order, just as often as I get the
chance. I will curse, and again, curse back."

The speaker's voice was deep and resonant, filling the
whole room. His utterance deliberate and unshaken. His
face dark with the malign beauty of implacable hatred. Hear-
ing him, seeing him thus, Katherine Calmady's fortitude for-
sook her. She ceased to distinguish or discriminate. Na-
ture gave way. She knelt upon the floor before him, her
hands clasped, tears coursing down her checks. But of her
attitude and aspect she was unconscious.

412 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"Oh, Richard, Richard ! " she cried, " forgive me. Curse
me, my dearest, throw all the blame on me, my dearest — I
accept it — not on God. Only try, try to forgive ! Forgive
me for being your mother. Forgive me that I ever loved and
married. Forgive me the intolerable wrong which, all un-
knowingly, I did you before your birth. I humble myself be-
fore you, and with reason. For I am the cause, I, who would
give my life for your happiness, my blood for your healing, a
thousand times. But through all these years I have done my
poor best to serve you and to make up. The hypocrisies and
subterfuges which you lash so scornfully — and rightly perhaps
— were the fruit of my overcare for you. Rail at me. I de-
serve it. Perhaps I have been faithless, but only once or
twice, and for a moment. I was faithless towards you here,
in the garden to-night. But then I supposed you content.
Ah ! I hardly know what I say ! — Only rail at me, my be-
loved, not at God. And then try — try not to leave me in an-
ger. Try, before you go, to forgive ! "

Richard had sunk back in his chair, his hands clasped under
his head, watching her. It gave him the strangest sensation
to see his mother kneeling before him thus. At first it shocked
him almost to the point of heated protest, as against a thing
impermissible and indecorous. Then the devils of wounded
pride, of anarchy, and of revolt asserting themselves, he began
to relish, to be appeased by, the unseemly sight. Little Lady
Constance Quayle, and all that of which she was the symbol,
had disappointed and escaped him. But here was a woman,
worth a dozen Constance Quayles, in beauty, in intellect, and
in heart, prostrate before him, imploring his clemency as the
penitent implores the absolution of the priest ! An evil glad-
ness took him that he had power thus to subjugate so regal a
creature. His gluttony of inflicting pain — since he himself
suffered — his gluttony of exercising dominion — since he him-
self had been defied and defrauded — was in a degree satisfied.
His arrogance was at once reinforced and assuaged.

" It is absurd to speak of forgiveness," he said presently,
and slowly, "as it is absurd to speak of restitution. These
are mere words, having no real tally in fact. We appear to
have volition, but actually and essentially we are as leaves
driven by the wind. Where it blindly drives, there we blindly
go. So it has been from the beginning. So it always will be.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 413

In the last twenty-four hours there are many things I have
ceased to believe in, and among them, my dear mother, is
human responsibility."

He paused, and motioned Lady Calmady towards her chair
with a certain authority.

" Therefore calm yourself," he said. " Grieve as little as
may be about all this matter, and let us talk it over without
further emotion."

He waited a brief space, giving her time to recover her com-
posure, and then continued coldly, with a careful abstention
from any show of feeling.

" Let us clear our minds of cant, and go forward knowing
that there is really neither good nor evil. For these — even as
God Himself, whose existence I treated from the anthro-po-
morphic standpoint just now, so as to supply myself with a
target to shoot at, a windmill at which to tilt, a row of nine-
pins set up for the mere satisfaction of knocking them down
again — these are plausible delusions invented by man, in the
vain effort to protect himself and his fellows from the pro-
found sense of loneliness, and impotence, which seizes on him
if he catches so much as a passing glimpse of the gross com-
edy of human aspiration, human affection, briefly, human ex-
istence."

But, strive as he might, excitement gained on Richard once
more, for young blood is hot and gallops masterfully along the
veins, specially under the whip of real or imagined disgrace.
He sat upright, grasping the arms of his chair, and looking,
not at his mother, but away into the deep of the summer
night.

'' Perhaps my personal peculiarities confer on me unusually
acute perception of the inherent grossness of the human com-
edy. I propose to take the lesson to heart. They teach me
not to sacrifice the present to the future, but to fling away
ideals like so much waste paper, and just take that which I can
immediately get. They tell me to limit my horizon, and go
the common way of common, coarse-grained, sensual man —
in as far as that way is possible to me — and be of this world
worldly. And so, mother, I want you to understand that from
this day forth I turn over a new leaf, not only in thought, but
in conduct. I am going to have just all that my money and
position, and even this vile deformity — for, by God, I'll use

414 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

that too — what people won't give for love they'll give for cu-
riosity— can bring me of pleasure and notoriety. I am going
to lay hold of life with these rather horribly strong arms of
mine " — he looked across at Lady Calmady with a sneer-
ing smile. — "Strong ? " he repeated, " strong as a young bull-
ape's. I mean to tear the very vitals out of living, to tear
knowledge, excitement, intoxication, out of it, making them,
by right of conquest, my own. I will compel existence to
yield me all that it yields other men, and more — because my
senses are finer, my acquaintance with sorrow more intimate,
my quarrel with fortune more vital and more just. I am not
stupid. I shall not follow the beaten track. My imagination
-has been stimulated into rather dangerous activity by the pre-
natal insult put upon me. And now that I have emancipated
myself, I propose to apply my imagination practically.''
The young man flung himself back in his chair again.
** There ought to be startling results," he said, with gloomy
exultation. ** Don't you think so, mother? There should be
startling results."

Lady Calmady bowed herself together, putting her hands
over her eyes. Then raising her head, she managed to smile
at him, though very sadly, her sweet face drawn by exhaustion
and marred by lately shed tears.

*'Ah! yes, my dearest," she answered, '' no doubt the re-
sults will be startling, but whether any sensible increase of
happiness, either to yourself or others, will be counted among
them is open to question."

Richard laughed bitterly. — '*! shall have lived, anyhow,"
he rejoined. ''Worn out, not rusted and rotted out — which,
according to our former fme-fanciful programme, seemed the
only probable consummation of my unlucky existence."

His tone changed, becoming quietly businesslike and indif-
ferent.

" I am entering horses for some of the French events, and I
go through to Paris to-morrow to see various men there and
make the necessary arrangements. I shall take Chifney with
me for a few days. But the stables will not give you any
trouble. He will have given all the orders."
" Very well," Katherine said mechanically.

A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP 415

" Later I shall go on to Baden-Baden."

Katherine rallied somewhat.

" Helen de Vallorbes is there," she said, not without a trace
of her former pride.

" Certainly Helen de Vallorbes is there," he answered*
*^ That is why I go. I want to see her. It is inconsistent, I
admit, for Helen remains the one person gloriously untouched
by the wreck of the former order of things. Pray let there be
no misconception on that point. She belonged to the ideal
order, she belongs to it still."

" Ah, my dear, my dear ! " Katherine almost cried. Hi&
perversity hurt her a little too much so that the small, up-
springing flame of decent pride was quenched.

"Yes," he went on, " there was my initial, my cardinal,
mistake. For I was a traitor to all that was noblest and best
in me, when 1 persuaded myself, and weakly permitted you to-
persuade me, that a loveless marriage is better than a love in
which marriage is impossible, — that Lady Constance Quayle,
poor little soul, bought, paid for, and my admitted property,
could fill Helen's place, — though Helen was — and I intend
her to remain so, for I care for her enough to hold her honour
as sacred as I do your own — forever inaccessible."

Lady Calmady staggered to her feet.

" That is enough, Richard," she said. " That is enough,.
If you have more to say, in pity leave it until to-morrow."

The young man looked at her strangely.

" You are ill, mother," he said.

" No, no, I am only broken-hearted," she replied. " And
a broken heart, alas ! never killed so healthy a body as mine.
I shall survive this — and more perhaps. God knows. Do
not vex yourself about me, Dickie. — Go, live your life as It
seems fit to you. I have not the will, even had I the right,
to restrain you. And meanwhile I will be the steward of
your goods, as, long ago, when you were a child and belonged
to me wholly. You can trust me to be faithful and discreet,
at least in financial and practical matters. If you ever need
me, I will come even to the ends of the earth. And should
the desire take you to return, here you will find me. — And so,.
good-bye, my darling. I am foolishly tired. I grow light-
headed, and dare not linger, lest in my weakness I say that
which I afterwards regret."

4i6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

She passed to the door and went out, without looking back.

Left to himself Richard Calmady crossed to the writing-
table, swung himself up Into the revolving-chair, and remained
there sorting and docketing papers far Into the night. But
once, stooping, with long-armed adroitness, to unlock the
lowest drawer of the table, a madness of disgust towards the
unsightliness of his own person seized on and tore him.

" Oh ! God, God, God," he cried aloud, in the extremity
of his passion, " why hast Thou made me thus ? "

And to that question, as yet, there was no answer, though
it rang afar over the sleeping park, and up to the clear shining
stars of the profound and peaceful summer night.

BOOK V

RAKE'S PROGRESS

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH THE READER IS COURTEOUSLY ENTREATED TO GROW
OLDER BY THE SPACE OF SOME FOUR YEARS, AND TO SAII.
SOUTHWARD HO ! AWAY

'TpHE southeasterly wind came fresh across the bay from
the crested range of the Monte Sant' Angelo. The
blossoms of the Judas-trees, breaking from the smooth gray
stems and branches — on which they perch so quaintly — fell in
a red-mauve shower upon the slabs of the marble pavement^
upon the mimic waves of the fountain basin, and upon the.
clustering curls, and truncated shoulders, of the bust of
Homer standing in the shade of the grove of cypress and ilex
which sheltered the square, high-lying hill-garden, at this hour
of the morning, from the fierceness of the sun. They floated
as far even as the semicircular steps of the pavilion on the
extreme right — the leaded dome of which showed dark and
livid on the one side, white and glistering on the other, against
the immense and radiant panorama of mountain, sea, and sky.
The garden, its fountains, neatly clipped shrubs, and formal
paved alleys, was backed by a large villa of the square, flat-
roofed order common to southern Italy. The record of its
age had recently suflFered modification by application of a coat
of stucco, of a colour intermediate between faint lemon-yellow
and pearl-gray, and by the renovation of the fine arabesques —
Pompeian in character — decorating the narrow interspaces^
between its treble range of Venetian shutters. Otherwise^

417

4i8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the aspect of the Villa Vallorbes showed but small alteration
since the year when, for a few socially historic weeks, the
"glorious Lady Blessington," and her strangely assorted train,
condescended to occupy it prior to taking up their residence
at the Palazzo Belvedere, near by. The walls were sufficiently
massive to withstand a siege. The windows of the ground
floor, set in deeply-hewn ashlar work, were cross-barred as
those of a prison. Above, the central windows and door of
the entresol, opened on to a terrace of black and white marble,
from which at cither end a wide, shallow-stepped, curved
stairway led down into the garden. The first floor consisted
of a suite of noble rooms, each of whose lofty windows gave
on to a balcony of wrought ironwork, very ornate in design.
The topmost story, immediately below the painted frieze of
the parapet, coincided in height and in detail with the entresol.

The villa was superbly situated upon an advancing spur of
hill, so that, looking down from its balconies, looking out from
between the pale and slender columns of the pavilion, the
whole city of Naples lay revealed below. — Naples, that be-
wildering union of modern commerce and classic association
— its domes, its palms, its palaces, its crowded, hoarse-shout-
ing quays, its theatres and giant churches, its steep and filthy
lanes black with shadow, its reeking markets, its broad, sun-
scorched piazzas, its glittering, blue waters, its fringing forest
of tall masts, and innumerable, close-packed hulls of ocean-
going ships ! Naples, city of glaring contrasts — heaven of
rascality, hell of horses, unrivaled all the western world over
for natural beauty, for spiritual and moral grossness ! Naples,
breeding, teeming, laughing, fighting, festering, city of music,
city of fever and death ! Naples, at once abominable and en-
chanting— city to which, spite of noise, stenches, cruelty and
squalor, those will return, of necessity, and return again,
whose imagination has once been taken captive in the meshes
of her many-coloured net !

And among the captives of Naples, on the brilliant morning
in question in the early spring of the year 1871, open-eared
and open-eyed to its manifest and manifold incongruities,
relishing alike the superficial beauty and underlying bestiality
of it, was very certainly Helen de Vallorbes. Several years
had elapsed since she had visited this fascinating locality, and
she could congratulate herself upon conditions adapted to a

RAKE'S PROGRESS 419^

more intimate and comprehensive acquaintance with its verjr
various humours than she had ever enjoyed before. She had
spent more than one winter here, it is true, immediately sub-
sequent to her marriage. But she had then been required to
associate exclusively with the members of her husband's
family, and to fill a definite position in the aristocratic society
of the place. The tone of that society was not a little lax.
Yet, being notably defective in the saving grace of humour —
as to the feminine portion of it, at all events — its laxity proved
sadly deficient in vital interest. The fair Neapolitans dis-
played as small intelligence in their intrigues as in their piety.
In respect of both they remained ignorant, prejudiced, hope-
lessly conventional. Their noble ancestresses of the Renais-
sance understood and did these things better — so Helen
reflected. She found herself both bored and irritated. She
feared she had taken up her residence in southern Italy quite
three centuries too late.

But all that was in the past — heaven be praised for it ! Just
now she was her own mistress, at liberty — thanks to the for-
tune of war — to comport herself as she pleased and obey any
caprice that took her. The position was ideal in its freedom,,
while the intrinsic value of it was enhanced by contrast with
recent disagreeable experiences. For the alarms and depriva-
tions of the siege of Paris were but lately over. She had
come through them unscathed in health and fortune. Yet
they had left their mark. During those months of all-encom-
passing disappointment and disaster the eternal laughter — in
which she trusted — had rung harshly sardonic, to the breaking
down of self-confidence, and light-hearted, cynic philosophy.
It scared her somewhat. It made her feel old. It chilled her
with suspicion of the actuality of The Four Last Things —
death and judgment, heaven and hell. The power of a merry
scepticism waxed faint amid the scream of shells and long-
drawn, murderous crackle of the mitrailleuse, Helen, indeed^,
became actively superstitious, thereby falling low in her own
self-esteem. She took to frequenting churches, and spending
long, still days with the nuns, her former teachers, within the
convent of the Sacre CcEur. Circumstances so worked upon
her that she made her submission, and was solemnly and duly
received back into the fold of the Church. She confessed-
ardently, yet with certain politic reservations. The priest^

420 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

after all, is but human. It is only charitable to be considerate
of his feelings — so she argued — and avoid overburdening his
conscience, poor dear man, by blackening your own reputa-
tion too violently ! The practice of religion was a help —
truly it was, since it served to pass the time. And then, who
could tell but that it might not prove really useful hereafter,
as, when all is said and done, those dread Four Last Things
will present themselves to the mind, in hours of depression
with haunting pertinacity ? It is clearly wise, then, to be on
the safe side of Holy Church in these matters, accepting her
own assertion that she is very certainly on the safe side of the
Deity.

Yet, notwithstanding her pious exercises, Helen de Vallor-
bes found existing circumstances excessively disturbing and
disquieting. She was filled with an immense self-pity. She
feared her health was failing. She became nervously sensible
of her eight-and-twenty years, telling herself that her youth
and the glory of it had departed. She wore black dresses,
rolled bandages, pulled lint. Selecting Mary Magdalene as
her special intercessor, she made a careful study of the life and
legends of that saint. This proved stimulating to her imagina-
tion. She proceeded to write a little one-act drama concern-
ing the holy woman's dealings, subsequent to her conversion,
^quite late in life in fact, with such as survived of her former
lovers. The dialogue was very moving in parts. Helen read
it aloud one bleak January evening, by the light of a single
-candle, to her friend M. Paul Destournelle, poet and novelist
— with whom, just then, by her own desire, her relations were
severely platonic — and they both wept. The application,
though delicate, was obvious. And those tears appeared to
lay the dust of so many pleasant sins, and promise fertilisation
of so heavy a crop of virtue, that — by inevitable action of the
law of contraries — the two friends found it more than ever
difficult to say farewell and part that night.

Now looking back on all that, viewing it calmly in per-
spective, her action and attitude struck Helen as somewhat
imbecile. Prayer and penitence have too often a tendency
to kick the beam when fear ceases to weight the balance.
And so it followed that the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
-eye, and the pride of life, presented themselves to her as
powers by no means contemptible, or unworthy of invocation.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 421

this morning, while she sat at the luxuriously furnished break-
fast-table beneath the glistering dome of the airy pavilion and
gazed out between its slender columns, over the curving lines
of the painted city and glittering waters of the bay, to the
cone of Vesuvius rising, in imperial purple, against the azure
sky. To-day, sign, as she noted, of fine weather, omen, as
she trusted, of good fortune, the smoke of its everlasting
burnings towered up and up into the translucent atmosphere,
and then drifted away — a gigantic, wedge-shaped pennon —
towards Capri and the open sea. And, beholding these things,,
out of simple, physical well-being, fulness of bread, convic-
tion of her own undiminished beauty, and the merry devilry
begotten of these, she fell to projecting a second, a com-
panion, one-act drama founded upon the life of the Magdalene,
but, this time, before the saint's conversion, at an altogether
earlier stage of her very instructive history. And this drama
she would not read to M. Destournelle — not a bit of it. In
it he should have neither part nor lot. — Registering which de-
termination, she shook her charming, honey-coloured head,,
holding up both hands with a gesture of humorous and well-
defined repudiation.

For, in truth, the day of M. Destournelle appeared, just
now, to be very effectually over. It had been reasonable
enough to urge her natural fears in journeying through a war-
distracted land — although guarded by Charles, most discreet
and resourceful of English men-servants, and Zelie Forestier,
most capable of French lady's-maids — as excuse for Paul
Destournelle joining her at a wayside station a short distance
out of Paris and accompanying her south. A la guerre comme
a la guerre, A beautiful v/oman can hardly be too careful of
her person amid the many and primitive dangers which battle
and invasion let loose. De Vallorbes himself — detestably
jealous though he was — could hardly have objected to her thus
securing effective protection, had he been acquainted with the
fact. That he was not so acquainted was, of course, the
veriest oversight. But, the frontier once reached — the better
part of three weeks had elapsed in the reaching of it — and all
danger of war and tumult past, both the necessity and, to be
frank, the entertainment of M. Destournelle's presence be-
came less convincing. Helen grew a trifle weary of his trans-
ports, his suspicions, his hel tcte de Jesu souffrant^ his insatiable

422 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

literary and personal vanity. The charm, the excitement, of
the situation, began to wear rather threadbare, while the prac-
tical inconveniences and restrictions it imposed increasingly
disclosed themselves. A lover, as Helen reflected, provided
you see enough of him, offers but small improvement upon a
husband. He is liable to become possessive and didactic, after
the manner of the natural man. He is liable to forget that
the relation is permitted, not legalised — that it exists on suf-
france merely, and is therefore terminable at the will of either
party. The last days of that same southern journey had been
marked by misunderstandings and subsequent reconciliations,
in an ascending scale of acrimony and fervour on the part of
iier companion. In Helen's case familiarity tended very rap-
idly to breed contempt. She ceased to be in the least amused
by these recurring agitations. At Pisa, after a scene of a par-
ticularly excited nature, she lost all patience, frankly told her
admirer that she found him not a little ridiculous, and re-
quested him to remove himself, his grievances, and his bel tete
de Jesu elsewhere. M. Destournelle took refuge in nerves,
threats of morphia, and his bedchamber, — in the chaste seclu-
sion of which apartment Helen left him, unvisited and uncon -
soled, while, attended by her servants, she gaily resumed her
journey.

An adorable sense of independence possessed her, of the
charm of her own society, of the absence of all external com-
pelling or directing of her movements — no circumscription of
her liberty possible — the world before her where to choose !
Not only were privations, dismal hauntings of siege and
slaughter, left behind, and M. Destournelle, just now most
wearisome of lovers, left behind also, but de Vallorbes himself
had, for the time being, become a permissibly negligible quan-
tity. The news of more fighting, more bloodshed, had just
reached her, though the German armies were marching back
to the now wholly German Rhine. For upon unhappy Paris
had come an hour of deeper humiliation than any which could
be procured by the action of foreign foes. She was a king-
dom divided against herself, a mother scandalously torn by her
own children. News had reached Helen too, news special
and highly commendatory of her husband, Angelo Luigi
Trancesco. Early in that eventful struggle he had enlisted in
the Garde Mobile, all the manhood and honest sentiment resi-

RAKE'S PROGRESS 423

dent in him stirred into fruitful activity by the shame and peril
of his adopted country. Now Helen learned he had distin-
guished himself in the holding of Chatillon against the insur-
gents, had been complimented by MacMahon upon his
endurance and resource, had been offered, and had accepted, a
commission in the regular army. Promotion was rapid during
the later months of the war, and probability pointed to the
young man having started on a serious military career. -

" Well, let him both start and continue," Helen com-
mented. ^' I am the last person to be otherwise than de-
lighted thereat. Just in proportion as he is occupied he ceases
to be inconvenient. If he succeeds — good. If he is shot —
good likewise. For him laurels and a hero's tomb. For me
crape and permanent emancipation. An agreeably romantic
conclusion to a profoundly unromantic marriage — fresh proof,
were such needed, of the truth of the immortal Dr. Pangloss'
saying, that ^ all is for the best in this best of all possible
worlds!'"

In such happy frame of mind did Madame de Vallorbes con-
tinue during her visit to Florence and upon her onward way
to Perugia. But there self-admiration ceased to be all-suffi-
cient for her. She needed to read confirmation of that ad-
miration in other eyes. And the gray Etruscan city, uplifted
on its star-shaped hill, offered her a somewhat grim reception.
Piercmg winds swept across the Tiber valley from the still
snow-clad Apennines above Assisi. The austere, dark-walled,
lombard-gothic churches and palaces showed forbidding, merci-
less almost, through the driving wet. Even in fair summer
weather suspicion of ancient and implacable terror lurks in the
shadow of those cyclopean gateways, and stalks over the un-
yielding, rock-hewn pavements of those solemn mediaeval
streets. There was an incalculable element in Perugia which
raised a certain anger in Helen. The place seemed to defy
her and make Hght of her pretensions. As during the siege of
Paris, so now, echoes of the eternal laughter saluted her ears,
ironic in tone.

Nor was the society offered by the residents in the hotel,
weather-bound like herself, of a specially enlivening descrip-
tion. It was composed almost exclusively of middle-aged
English and American ladies — widows and spinsters — of
blameless morals and anxiously active intelligence. They

424 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

wrapped their lean forms in woolen shawls and ill-cut jackets.
They pervaded salon and corridors guide-book in hand. They
discoursed of Umbrian antiquities, Etruscan tombs, frescoes
and architecture. Having but little life in themselves, they
tried, rather vainly, to warm both hands at the fire of the life
of the past. Among them, Helen, in her vigorous and self-
secure, though fine-drawn, beauty, was about as much at home
as a young panther in a hen-roost. They admired, they
vaguely feared, they greatly wondered at her. Had one of
those glorious young gallants, Baglioni or Oddi, clothed in
scarlet, winged, helmeted, sword on thigh, as Perugino has
painted them on the walls of the Sala del Cambio — very
strangest union of sensuous worldliness and radiant arch-
angelic grace — had one of these magnificent gentlemen ruffled
into the hotel parlour, he could hardly have startled the eyes,
and perplexed the understanding, of the virtuous and learned
Anglo-Saxon and T^ransatlantic feminine beings there assem-
bled, more than did Madame de Vallorbes.

For all such sexless creatures, for the great company of
women in whose outlook man plays no immediate or active
part, Helen had, in truth, small respect. They appeared to
her so absurdly inadequate, so contemptibly divorced from the
primary interests of existence. More than once, in a spirit of
mischievous malice, she was tempted to bid the good ladies lay
aside their Baedekers and Murrays, and increase their knowl-
edge of the Italian character and language by study of the
Novelle of Bandello, or of certain merry tales to be found in
the pages of the Decameron, She had copies of both works
in her traveling-bag. She was prepared, moreover, to illus-
trate such ancient saws by modern instances, for the truth of
which last she could quite honestly vouch. But on second
thoughts she spared her victims. The quarry was not worth
the chase. What self-respecting panther can, after all, go a-
hunting in a hen-roost ? So from the neighbourhood of their
unlovely clothes, questioning glances, and under-vitalised pur-
suit of art and literature, she removed herself to her sitting-
room up-stairs. Charles should serve her meals there in future,
for to sit at table with these neuters, clothed in amorphous
garments, came near upsetting her digestion.

Meanwhile, as she watched the rain streaming down the
panes of the big windows, watched thin-legged, heavily-cloaked

RAKE'S PROGRESS 425

figures tacking, wind-buffeted, across the gray-black street into
the shelter of some cavernous port cochere^ it must be owned
her spirits went very sensibly down into her boots. Even the
presence of the despised and repudiated Destournelle would
have been grateful to her. Remembrance of all the less suc-
cessful episodes of her career assaulted her. And in that con-
nection, of necessity, the thought of Brockhurst returned upon
her. For neither the affair of her childhood — that of the little
dancer with blush-roses in her hat — or the other affair — of now
nearly four years back — the intimate drama frustrated, within
sight of its climax, by intervention of Lady Calmady — could
be counted otherwise than as failures. It was strange hov/
deep-seated was her discontent under this head. As on Queen
Mary's heart the word Calais, so on hers Brockhurst, she
sometimes thought, might be found written when she was dead.
In the last four years Richard had given her princely gifts.
He had treated her with a fine, old-world chivalry, as some-
thing sacred and apart. But he rarely sought her society. He
seemed, rather carefully, to elude her pursuit. His name was
not exactly a patent of discretion and rectitude in these days,
unfortunately. Still Helen found his care of her reputation —
as far as association of her name with his went — somewhat
exaggerated. She could hardly believe him to be indifferent to

her, and yet Oh ! the whole matter was unsatisfactory,

abominably unsatisfactory — of a piece with the disquieting
influences of this grim and fateful city, with the detestable
weather evident there without !

And then, suddenly, an idea came to Helen de Vallorbes,
causing the delicate colour to spring into her cheeks, and the
light into her eyes, veiled by those fringed, semitransparent lids.
For, some two years earlier, Richard Calmady had taken her
husband's villa at Naples on lease, it offering, as he said, a
convenient pied a terre to him while yachting along the adjacent
coasts, up the Black Sea to Odessa, and eastward as far as
Aden, and the Persian Gulf. The house, save for the actual
fabric of it, had become rather dilapidated and ruinate. To
de Vallorbes it appeared clearly advantageous to get the
property off his hands, and touch a considerable yearly sum,
rather than have his pocket drained by outgoings on a place in
which he no longer cared to live. So the Villa Vallorbes passed
for the time being into Richard Calmady's possession. It

426 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

pleased his fancy. Helen heard he had restored and refurnished
it at great expenditure of money and of taste.

These facts she recalled. And, recalling them, found both
the actuality of rain-blurred, wind-scourged town without, and
anger-begetting memories of Brockhurst within, fade before a
seductive vision of sun-bathed Naples and of that nobly placed
and painted villa, in which — as it seemed to her — was just now
resident promise of high entertainment, the objective delight of
abnormal circumstance, the subjective delight of long-cherished
revenge. All the rapture of her existing freedom came back
on her, while her brain, fertile in forecast of adventure,
pi-QJected scenes and situations not unworthy of the pen of
Boccaccio himself. Fired by such thoughts, she moved from
the window, stood before a tall glass at right angles to it and
contemplated her own fair reflection long and intimately. An
absorbing interest in the general effect, and in the details, of
her person possessed her. She moved to and fro observing
the grace of her carriage, the set of her hips, the slenderness of
her waist. She unfastened her soft, trailing tea-gown,
throwing the loose bodice of it back, critically examining her
bare neck, the swell of her beautiful bosom, the firm contours
of her arms from shoulder to elbow. Her skin was of a clear,
golden whiteness, smooth, fine in texture, as that of a child.
Placing her hands on the gilded frame of the mirror, high up
on either side, she observed her face, exquisitely healthful in
colour, even as seen in this mournful, afternoon light. She
leaned forward, gazing intently into her own eyes — meeting in
them, as Narcissus in the surface of the fatal pool, the radiant
image of herself. And this filled her with a certain intoxica-
tion, a voluptuous self-love, a profound persuasion of the power
and completeness of her own beauty. She caressed her own
neck, her own lips, with lingering finger-tips. She bent her
bright head and kissed the swell of her cuplike breasts. Never
had she received so entire assurance of the magic of her own
personality.

'^ It is all — all, as perfect as ever," she exclaimed exultantly.
" And while it remains perfect, it should be made use of.'*

Helen waved her hand, smiling, to the smiling image in the
mirror.

" You and I together — your beauty and my brains — I pit
the pair of us against all mankind ! Together we have worked

RAKE'S PROGRESS 427

pretty little miracles before now, causing the proud to lay aside
their pride and the godly their virtue. A man of strange
passions shall hardly escape us — nor shall the mother that bare
him escape either."

Her face hardened, her laughing eyes paled to the colour
of fine steel. She lifted the soft-curling hair from ofF her
right temple disclosing a small, crescent-shaped scar.

" That is the one blemish, and we will exact the price of it
— you and I — to the ultimate sou.''''

Then she moved away, overcome by sudden amusement at
her own attitude, which she perceived risked being slightly
comic. Heroics were, to her thinking, unsuitable articles for
home consumption. Yet her purpose held none the less
strongly and steadily because excitement lessened. She re«
fastened her tea gown, tied the streaming azure ribbons of it,
patted bows and laces into place, walked the length of the
room a time or two to recover her composure, then rang the
bell. And, on the arrival of Charles, — irreproachably correct
in dress and demeanour, his clean-shaven, sharp-featured,
rakish countenance controlled to praiseworthy nullity of ex-
pression, she said : —

" The weather is abominable."

The man-servant set down the tray on a little table before
her, turned out the corners of the napkin, deftly arranged the
tea-things.

" It is a little dull, my lady."

" How is the glass ? "

" Falling steadily, my lady."

*'I cannot remain here."

"No, my lady?"

" Find out about the trains south — to Naples."

"Yes, my lady. We can join the Roman express at Chiusi.
When does your ladyship wish to start ? "

" I must telegraph first."

" Certainly, my lady."

Charles produced telegraph forms. It was Helen's boast
that, upon request, the man could produce any known object
from a packet of pins to a white elephant, or fully manned
battleship. She had a lively regard for her servant's ability.
So had he, it may be added, for that of his mistress. The
telegram was written and despatched. But the reply took four

428 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

days in reaching Madame de Vallorbes, and during those days
it rained incessantly. The said reply came in the form of a
letter. Sir Richard Calmady was at Constantinople, so the
writer — Bates, his steward — had reason to believe. But it was
probable he would return to Naples shortly. Meanwhile he —
the steward — had permanent orders to the effect that the villa
was at Madame de Vallorbes' disposition should she at any
time express the wish to visit it. She would find everything
prepared for her reception. This information caused Helen
singular satisfaction. It was very charming, very courteous^
of Richard thus to remember her. She set forth from Perugia
full of ingenious purpose, deliciously light of heart.

Thus did it come about that, on the afore-mentioned gay^
spring morning, Madame de Vallorbes breakfasted beneath the
glistering dome of the airy pavilion, all Naples outstretched
before her, while the blossoms of the Judas-trees fell in a
red-mauve shower upon the slabs of the marble pavement, and
the mimic waves of the fountain basin, and upon the clustered
curls and truncated shoulders of the bust of Homer stationed
within the soft gloom of the ilex and cypress grove. She had
arrived the previous evening, and had met with a dignified wel-
come from the numerous household. Her manner was gracious^
kindly, captivating — she intended it to be all that. She slept
well, rose in buoyant health and spirits, partook of a meal of-
fering example of the most finished Italian cooking. Finish, in
any department, appealed to Helen's artistic sense. Life was
sweet — moreover it was supremely interesting ! Her break-
fast ended, rising from her place at table, she looked away to
the purple cone of the great volcano and the uprising of the
smoke of its everlasting burnings. The sight of this, mag-
nificent, menacing evidence of the anarchic might of the
powers of nature, quickened the pagan instinct in her. She
wanted to worship. And even in so doing, she became aware
of a kindred something in herself — of an answering and
anarchic energy, a certain menace to the conventional works
and ways, and fancied security, of groping, purblind man*
The insolence of a great lady, the dangerously primitive in-
stincts of a great courtesan, filled her with an enormous
pride, a reckless self-confidence.

Turning, she glanced back across the formal garden, bright
with waxen camellias set in glossy foliage, with early roses^

RAKE'S PROGRESS 429

with hyacinths, lemon and orange blossom, towards the villa.
Upon the black-and-white marble balustrade a man leaned his
elbows. She could see his broad shoulders, his bare head.
From his height she took him, at first, to be kneeling, as,
motionless, he looked towards her and towards the splendid
view. Then she perceived that he was not kneeling, but
standing upright. She understood, and a very vital sensation
ran right through her, causing the queerest turn in her
blood.

" Mercy of heaven ! " she said to herself, " is it conceiva-
ble that now, at this time of day, I am capable of the egre*
gious folly of losing my head ? "

CHAPTER II

WHEREIN TIME IS DISCOVERED TO HAVE WORKED CHANGES

pTELEN, however, did not stay to debate as to the state of
her affections. She had had more than enough of re-
flection of late. Now action invited her. She responded.
The sweep of her turquoise-blue cloth skirts sent the fallen
Judas-blossoms dancing, to left and right, in crazy whirling com-
panies. She did not wait even to put on her broad-brimmed,
garden hat, — the crown of it encircled, as luck would have it,
by a garland of pale, pink tulle and pale, pink roses, — but
braved the sunshine with no stouter head-covering than the
coils of her honey-coloured hair. Rapidly she passed up the
central alley between the double row of glossy leaved camellia
bushes, laughter in her downcast eyes and a delicious thrill of
excitement at her heart. She felt strong and light, her being
vibrant, penetrated and sustained throughout by the bracing
air, the sparkling, crystal-clear atmosphere. Yet for all her
eagerness Helen remained an artist. She would not forestall
effects. Thriftily she husbanded sensations. Thus, reaching
the base of the black-and-white marble wall supporting the
terrace, where, midway in its long length, it was broken by an
arched grotto of rough-hewn stonework, in which maiden-hair
fern rooted, — the delicate fronds of it caressing the shoulders
of an undraped nymph, with ever-dripping water-pitcher upon

430 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

her rounded hip, — Helen turned sharp to the left, and arrived
at the bottom of the descending flight of steps without once
looking up. That Richard Calmady still leaned on the balus-
trade some twelve to fourteen feet above that same cool, green
grotto she knew well enough. But she did not choose to an-
ticipate either sight or greeting of him. Both should come to
her as a whole. She would receive a single and unqualified
impression.

So, silently, without apparent haste, she passed up the flight
of shallow steps on to the edge of the wide black-and-white
chequer-board platform. It was sun-bathed, suspended, as it
seemed, between that glorious prospect of city, mountain, sea,
and the unsullied purity of the southern heavens. It was
vacant, save for the solitary figure and the sharp-edged, yet
amorphous, shadow cast by that same figure. For the young
man had moved as she came up from the garden below. He
stood clear of the balustrade, only the fingers of his left hand
resting upon the handrail of it. Seeing him thus the strange-
ness, the grotesque incompleteness, of his person struck her
as never before. But this, though it did not move her to
mirth as in her childhood, moved her to pity no more now
than it then had. That which it did was to deepen, to stimu-
late, her excitement, to provoke and to satisfy the instinct of
cruelty latent in every pagan nature such as hers. Could
Helen have chosen the moment of her birth she would have
been a great lady of Imperial Rome, holding power of life
and death over her slaves, and the mutes and eunuchs with
which the East should have furnished her palace in the eternal
city, and her dainty villa away there on the purple flanks of
Vesuvius at Herculaneum or Pompeii. The delight of her
own loveliness, of her own triumphant health and activity,
would have been increased tenfold by the sight of, by power
over, such stultified and hopelessly disfranchised human crea-
tures. And the first sight of Richard Calmady now, though
she did not stop very certainly to analyse the exact how and
why of her increasing satisfaction, took its root in this same
craving for ascendency by means of the suffering and loss of
others. While, unconsciously, the fine flavour of her satis-
faction was heightened by the fact that the victim, now before
her, was her equal in birth, her superior in wealth, in intelli-
gence and worldly station.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 431

But as she drew nearer, Richard the while making no effort
to go forward and receive her, buoyant self-complacency and
self-congratulation suffered diminution. For, rehearsing this
same meeting during those rain-blotted days of waiting at
Perugia, imagination had presented Dickie as the inexperi-
enced, tender-hearted, sweet-natured lad she had known and
beguiled at Brockhurst four years earlier. As has already been
stated her meetings with him, since then, had been brief and
infrequent. Now she perceived that imagination had played a
silly trick upon her. The boy she had left, the man who
stood awaiting her so calmly were, save in one distressing
peculiarity, two widely different persons. For in the interval
Richard Calmady had eaten very freely of the fruit of the
Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and that diet had
left its mark not only on his character, but on his appearance.
He had matured notably, all trace of ingenuous, boyish charm
having vanished. His skin, though darkened by recent sea-
faring, was colourless. His features were at once finer and
more pronounced than of old — the bone of the face giving it
a noticeable rigidity of outline, index at once of indomitable
will and irreproachable breeding. The powerful jaw and
strong muscular neck might have argued a measure of brutal-
ity. But happily the young man's mouth had not coarsened.
His lips were compressed, relaxing rarely into the curves
which, as a lad, had rendered his smile so peculiarly engaging.
Still there was no trace of grossness in their form or expres-
sion. Hard living had, indeed, in Richard's case, been matter
of research rather than of appetite. The intellectual part of
him had never fallen wholly into bondage to the animal. He
explored the borders of the Forbidden hoping to find some
anodyne with which to assuage the ache of a vital discontent,
rather than by any compulsion of natural lewdness.

Much of this quick-witted Helen quickly apprehended.
He was cleverer, more serious, and mentally more distin-
guished, than she had supposed him. And this, while open-
ing up new sources of interest and pricking her ambition of
conquest, disclosed unforeseen difficulties in the way of such
conquest. Moreover, she was slightly staggered by the
strength and inscrutability of his countenance, the repose of
his bearing and manner. His eyes affected her oddly. They
were cold and clear as some frosty, winter's night, the pupils

432 . SIR RICHARD CALMADY

of them very small. They seemed to see all things, yet tell
nothing. They were as windows opening onto an endless
perspective of empty space. They at once challenged curios-
ity and baffled inquiry. Helen's excitement deepened, and
she was sensible it needed all the subjective support, all the
indirect flattery, with which the fact of his deformity supplied
her self-love to prevent her standing in awe of him. As con-
sequence her address was impulsive rather than studied.

" Richard, I have had a detestable winter," she said. " It
wore upon me. It demoralised me. I was growing dull,
superstitious even. I wanted to get away, to put a long dis-
tance between myself and certain experiences, certain mem-
ories. I wanted to hear another language. You have always
been sympathetic to me. It was natural, if a little unconven-
tional, to take refuge with you."

Madame de Vallorbes spoke with an unaccustomed and very
seductive air of apology, her face slightly flushed, her arms
hanging straight at her sides, the long, pink, tulle strings of
the hat she carried in her left hand trailing upon the black-
and-white squares of the pavement.

" To do so seemed obvious in contemplation. I did not
stop to consider possible objections. But, in execution, the
objections become hourly more glaringly apparent. I want
you to reassure me. Tell me I have not dared too greatly in
comino; thus uninvited ? "

" Of course not," he answered. '^ I hope you found the
house comfortable and everything prepared for you. The
servants had their orders."

" I know, I know. That you should have provided against
the possibility of my coming some day moved me a little more
than I care to tell you." — Helen paused, looking upon him,
and that look had in it a delicate affinity to a caress. But the
young man's manner, though faultlessly courteous, was lack-
ing in any hint of enthusiasm. Helen could have imagined,
and that angered her, something of irony in his tone.

" Oh, there's no matter for thanks," he said. " The house
was yours, will be yours again. The least I can do, since
you and de Vallorbes are good enough to let me live in it
meanwhile, is to beg you to make any use you please of it.
Indeed it is I, rather than you, v/ho come uninvited just now.
I had not intended being back here for another month. But

RAKE'S PROGRESS 433

there was a case of something suspiciously like cholera on
board my yacht at Constantinople, and it seemed wisest to get
away to sea as soon as possible. One of the firemen — oh,
he's all right now ! Still I shall send him home to England.
He's a married man — the only one I have on board. A use-
ful fellow, but he must go. I don't choose to take the re-
sponsibility of creating the widow and the fatherless whenever
one of my crew chances to fall sick and depart into the un-
known."

Richard talked on, very evidently for the mere sake of pass-
ing the time. And all the while those eyes, which told noth-
ing, dwelt quietly upon Helen de Vallorbes until she became
nervously impatient of their scrutiny. For it was not at all
thus that she had pictured and rehearsed this meeting during
those days of waiting at Perugia !

"We got in last night," he continued. "But I slept on
board. I heard you had just arrived, and I did not care to run
the risk of disturbing you after your journey."

" You are very considerate," Helen remarked.

She was surprised out of all readiness of speech. This
new Richard impressed her, but she resented his manner. He
took her so very much for granted. Admiration and homage
were to her as her daily bread, and that any man should fail to
offer them caused her frank amazement. It did more. It
raised in her a longing to inflict pain. He might not admire^
but at least he should not remain indifferent. Therefore she
backed a couple of steps, so as to get a good view of Richard
Calmady. And, without any disguise of her purpose, took a
comprehensive and leisurely survey of his dwarfed and muti-
lated figure. While so doing she pinned on her rose-trimmed
hat, and twisted the long, tulle strings of it about her throat.

" You have altered a good deal, Richard," she said reflect-
ively.

" Probably," he answered. " I had a good deal to learn,
being a very thin-skinned young simpleton. In part, any-
how, I have learned it. And I do my best practically to
apply my knowledge. But if I have altered, so, happily, have
not you."

" I remain a simpleton ? " she inquired, her irritation find-
ing voice.

" You cannot very well remain that which you never have

434 SIR RICHARD CALMADY^-

been. What you do remain is — if I may say so — victoriously
yourself, unspoiled, unmodified by contact with that singularly
stupid invention, society, true to my earliest recollections of

you even " Richard shuffled closer to the balustrade,

threw his left arm across it, grasping the outer edge of the
broad coping, — " even in small details of dress."

He looked away over the immense and radiant prospect,
and then up at the radiant woman in her vesture of turquoise,
pink, and gold.

And, so doing, for the first time his face relaxed, being
lighted up by a flickering, mocking smile. And something in
his shuffling movements, in the fine irony of his expression,
pierced Helen with a sensation hitherto unknown, broke up
the absoluteness of her egotism, stirred her blood. She forgot
resentment in an absorbed and absorbing interest. The ordi-
nary man of the world she knew as thoroughly as her old
shoe. Such an one presented small field of discovery to her.
But this man was unique in person, and promised to be so in
character also. Her curiosity regarding him was profound.
For the moment it sunk all personal considerations, all humor-
ous or angry criticism, either of her own attitude towards him
or of his attitude towards her. Silently she came forward, sat
down on the marble bench, close to where he stood, and, turn-
ing sideways, leaned her elbows upon the top of the balustrade
beside him. She looked up now, rather than down at him,
and it went home to her, had nature spared him infliction of
that hideous deformity, what a superb creature physically he
would have been ! There was a silence, Helen remaining
intent, quiet, apprehension and imagination sensibly upon the
stretch.

At last Richard spoke abruptly.

" By the way, did you happen to observe the decorations of
your room ? Do you like them ? "

" Yes and no," she answered. " They struck me as rather
wonderful, but liable to induce dreams of Scylla and Charyb-
dis, of the Fata Morgana, and other inconvenient accidents of
the deep. Fortunately I was too tired last night to be ex-
cursive in fancy, or I might have slept badly. You have
gathered all the colours of the ocean and fixed them, some-
how, on those carpets and hangings and strangely frescoed
walls."

. ' RAKE'S PROGRESS 435

"You saw that? "

" How could I fail to see it, since you kindly excuse me of
being, or ever having been, a simpleton ? " — Helen spoke
lightly, tenderly almost. An overmastering desire to please*
had overtaken her. " You have employed a certain wizardry
in the furnishing of that room," she continued. '' It lays
subtle influences upon one. What made you think of it ? "

" A dream, an idea, which has stuck by me queerly, though
all other fond things of the sort were pitched overboard long
ago. I suppose one is bound to be illogical on one point, if
only to prove to oneself the absolutism of one's logic on all
others. Thus do I, otherwise sane and consistent realist,
materialist, pessimist, cling to my one dream and ideal — take
it out, dandle it, nourish and cherish it, with weakly senti-
mental faithfulness. To do so is ludicrous. But tfien my
being here at all, calmly considered, is ludicrous. And it,
too, is among the results of the one idea."

He paused, and Helen, leaning beside him, waited. The
sunshine covered them both. The sea wind was fresh in
their faces. While the many voices of Naples came up to
them confused, strident, continuous, with sometimes a bugle-
call, sometimes a clang of hammers, or quick pulse of stringed
instruments, or jangle of church-bells, or long-drawn bellow
of a steamship clearing for sea, detaching itself from the uni-
versal chorus. Capri, Ischia, Procida, floated, islands of
amethyst, upon the sapphire of the bay, and the smoke of
Vesuvius rolled ceaselessly upward.

"You see and hear and feel all this," Richard continued
presently. " Well, when I saw it for the first time I was
pretty thoroughly out of conceit with myself and all creation.
I had been experimenting freely in things not usually talked
of in polite society. And I was abominably sold, for I found
the enjoyment such things procure is decidedly overrated.
Unmentionable matters, once fully explored, are just as tedious
and inadequate as those which supply the most unexceptiona-
ble subjects of conversation. Moreover, in the process of
exploration I had touched a good deal of pitch, and, the
simpleton being still superfluously to the fore in me, I was
squeamishly sensible of defilement."

The young man shifted his position slightly, resting his
chin in the hollow of his hands^ speaking quietly and indifFcr-»

436 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ently, as of some matter foreign to himself and his personal
interests.

" I have reason to believe I was as fairly and squarely
ivretched as it is possible for an intelligent being to be. I had
convinced myself, experimentally, that human existence,
human nature, was a bottomless pit and an uncommonly
filthy one at that. Reaction was inevitable. Then I under-
stood why men have invented gods, subscribed to irrational
systems of theology, hailed and accredited transparently ridicu-
lous miracles. Such lies are necessary to certain stages of
development simply for the preservation of sanity, just as, at
another stage, sanity, for its own preservation, is necessarily
driven to declare their falsehood. And so I, after the manner
of my kind, was driven to take refuge in a dream. The sub-
jective, in some form or other, alone makes life continuously
possible. And all this, we now look at, determined the
special nature of my attempt at subjective support and conso-
lation."

Richard paused again, contemplating the view.

" All this — its splendour, its diversity, its caprices and
seductions, its suggestion of underlying danger — presented
itself to me as the embodiment of a personality that has had
remarkable influence in the shaping of my life."

So far Helen had listened intently and silently. Now she
moved a little, straightening up her charming figure, pulling
down the wide brim of her hat to shelter her eyes from the
heat and brightness of the sun.

" A woman ? " she asked briefly.

Richard turned to her, that same flickering of mockery in
his still face.

"Oh! you mustn't require too much of me!" he said.
" Remember the simpleton was not wholly eradicated then. —
Yes, very much a woman. Of course. How should it be
otherwise ? It gave me great pleasure to look at that which
looked like her. It gives me pleasure even yet. So I wrote
and asked de Vallorbes to be kind enough to let me rent the
villa. You remember it was not particularly well cared for.
There was an air of fallen greatness about the poor place.
Inside it was something of a barrack."

" I remember," Helen said.

" Well, I restored and refurnished it — specially the rooms

RAKE'S PROGRESS 437

you now occupy, in accordance with what I imagined to be her
taste. The whole proceeding was not a little feeble-minded,
since the probability of her ever inhabiting those rooms was
more than remote. But it amused, it pacified me, as prayer
to their self-invented deities pacifies the devout. I never stay
here for long together. If I did the spell might be broken. I
go away, I travel. I even experiment in things not usually
spoken of, but with a cooler judgment and less morbidly sen-
sitive conscience than of old. I amuse myself after more active
and practical fashions in other places. Here I amuse myself
only with my idea."

The even flow of his speech ceased. — " What do you think
of it, Helen ? " he demanded, almost harshly.

" I think it can't last. It is too intangible, too fantastic."

" I admit that to keep it intact needs an infinity of precau-
tions. For instance, I can make no near acquaintance with
Naples. I cannot permit myself to see the town at close
quarters. I only look at it from here. If I want to go to or
from the yacht, I do so at night and in a closed carriage. I
took on de Vallorbes' box at the San Carlo. If any good opera
is given I go and hear it. Otherwise I remain exclusively in
the house and garden. I am not acquainted with a single soul
in the place."

" And the woman," Helen exclaimed, a singular emotion at
once of envy and protest upon her. "Do you treat her with
the same cold-blooded calculation ? "

" Of the woman I know just as much and just as little as I
know of Naples. It is conceivable there may be unlovely
elements in her character, as well as unlovely quarters of this
beautiful city. I have avoided knowledge of both. You see
the whole arrangement is designed not for her benefit, but for
my own. It's an elaborate piece of self-seeking on my part,
but, so far, it has really worked rather successfully."

" It is preposterous. It cannot in the nature of things con-
tinue successful," Helen declared.

" I am not so sure of that," he replied calmly. " Even the
most preposterous of religious systems proves to have a remark-
able power of survival Why not this one ? In any case,
neither the success nor the failure depends on me. I shall be
true, on my part. The rest depends on her."

As Richard spoke he turned, leaning his back against the

438 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

balustrade, his face away from the sunlight and the wide view.
Again the extent of his deformity became arrestingly apparent
to Madame de Vallorbes.

" Has this woman ever been here ? " she asked.

"Yes — she has been here."

"And then ? And then ? " Helen cried.

The young man looked up at her, his face keen yet im-
passive, his eyes — as windows opening on to endless per-
spective of empty space — telling nothing. She recognised^
once again, that he was very strong. She also recognised that^
notwithstanding his strength, he was horribly sad.

" Ah ! then," he said, " the last of the poor, little, subjective
supports and consolations seemed in danger of going over-
board and joining their fellows in the uneasy deeps of the sea.
— But the history of that will keep till a more convenient
season. Cousin Helen. You have stood in the midday sun,
and I have talked about myself, quite long enough. However,
it was only fair to acquaint you with the limited resources in
the way of society and amusement offered by your present
dwelling. There are horses and carriages of course. Give
what orders you please. Only remember both the town and
the surrounding country are pretty rough. It is not fit for a
lady to drive by herself. Always take your own man, or one
of mine, with you if you go out. I hope you won't be quite
intolerably bored. Ask for whatever you want. — You let me
dine with you ? Thanks."

CHAPTER III

HELEN DE VALLORBES APPREHENDS VEXATIOUS COMPLICATION?

X^OUR gowns lay outspread upon the indigo-purple, em-
"■" broidered coverlet of the bed. The afterglow of an
orange and crimson sunset touched the folds of them, ranged
upward to the vaultings of the frescoed ceiling, and stained
the lofty walls as with the glare of a furnace. Sea-greens,
sea-blues, died in the heat of it, abashed and vanquished. But
so did not Madame de Vallorbes' white lawn and lace peignoir^
or her abundant hair, which Zelie Forestier — trim of figure,

RAKE'S PROGRESS 439

and sour of countenance — was in the act of dressing. These
caught th€ fiery light and held it, so that from head to foot
Helen appeared as an image of living gold. Sitting before
the toilet-table, her reflection in the great, oval mirror pleased
her.

" Which shall I wear ? "

" That depends upon the length of time madame proposes
to stay here. The black dress might be worn on several
occasions with impunity. The peacock brocade, the eau de
Nil^ the crocus yelJow, but once — twice at the uttermost.
They are ravishing costumes, but wanting in repose. They
are unsuited for frequent repetition."

Zelie's lean fingers twisted, puffed, pinned, the shining hair
very skilfully.

" I will put on the black dress."

" Relieved by madame's parure of pink topaz ? "

" Yes, I will wear the pink topazes."

" Then it will be necessary to modify the style of madame's
coiffure,^^

" There is plenty of time."

Helen took a hand-glass from the table and leaned forward
in the low, round-backed chair — faithful copy of a fine classic
model. She wanted to see the full glory of the afterglow
upon her profile, upon her neck, and bosom. Thus might
Cassiopeia, glass in hand, in her golden chair sit in high
heaven ! — Helen smiled at the pretty conceit. But the glory
was already departing. Sea-blues, sea-greens, sad by contrast,
began to reassert their presence on walls and carpet and hang-
ings."

" The black dress ? madame decides to remain then ? "

As she spoke the lady's-maid laid out the jewels, — chains,
bracelets, brooches, — each stone set in a rim of tiny rose-
knots of delicate workmanship. As she fingered them little,
yellow-pink flames seemed to dance in their many facets.
Then the afterglow died suddenly. The flames ceased to
dance. Helen's white garments turned livid, her neck and
bosom gray — and that, somehow, was extremely unpleasing to
Madame de Vallorbes.

" Light the candles," she said, almost sharply. " Yes, I
remain. Do hurry, Zelie. It is impossible to see. I detest
darkness. Hurry. Do you suppose I want to stay here all

440 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

night ? And look — you must bring that chain further forward.
It is not graceful. Make it droop. Let it follow the line of
my hair so that the pendant may fall there, in the centre. You
have it too much to the right. The centre — the centre — I tell
you. There, let the drop just clear my forehead."

Thus admonished the French woman wound the jewels in
her mistress' hair. But Madame de Vallorbes remained dis-
satisfied. The day had been one of uncertainty, of conflict-
ing emotions, and Helen's love of unqualified purposes was
great. Confusion in others was highly diverting. But in her-
self— no thank you ! She hated it. It touched her self-con-
fi<lence. It endangered the absoluteness of her self-belief and
self-worship. And these once shaken, small superstitions
assaulted her. In trivial happenings she detected indication
of ill-luck. Now Zelie's long, narrow face, divided into two
unequal portions by a straight bar of black eyebrow, and her
lean hands, as reflected in the mirror, awoke unreasoning dis-
trust. They appeared to be detached from the woman's dark-
clothed person, the outlines of which were absorbed in the
increasing dimness of the room. The sallow face moved,
peered, the hands clutched and hovered, independent and un-
related, about Helen's graceful head.

^'For pity's sake, more candles, Zelie ! " she repeated.
'' You look absolutely diabolic in this uncertain light."

" In an instant, madame. I am compelled first to fix this
curl in place."

She accomplished the operation with most admired delibera-
tion, and moved away more than once, to observe the effect,
before finally adjusting the hairpin.

" I cannot but regret that madame is unable to wear her
hair turned back from the face. Such an arrangement confers
height and an air of spirituality, which, in madame's case,
would be not only becoming but advantageous."

Helen skidded the hand-glass down upon the dressing-table,
causing confusion amid silver-topped pots and bottles, endan-
gering a jar of hyacinths, upsetting a tray of hairpins.

" Have I not repeatedly given you orders never to allude to
that subject," she cried.

The maid was on her knees calmly collecting the scattered
contents of the tray.

" A thousand pardons, madame," she said, with a certain

RAKE'S PROGRESS 44I

sour impudence. " Still, it must ever be a matter of regret to
any one truly appreciating madame's style of beauty, that she
should be always constrained to wear her hair shading her
forehead.''

Modern civilisation imposes restrictions even upon the most
high-spirited. At that moment Madame de Vallorbes was ripe
for the commission of atrocities. Had she been — as she
coveted to be — a lady of the Roman decadence it would have
gone hard with her waiting-woman, who might have found
herself ordered for instant execution or summarily deprived of
the organs of speech. But, latter-day sentiment happily for-
bidding such active expressions of ill-feeling on the part of the
employer towards the employed, Helen was forced to swallow
her wrath, reminding herself, meanwhile, that a confidential
servant is either most invaluable of friends or most dangerous
of enemies. There is no via media in the relation. And
Zelie as an enemy was not to be thought of. She could not
— displeasing reflection — afford to quarrel with Zelie. The
woman knew too much. Therefore Madame de Vallorbes
took refuge in lofty abstraction, while the tiresome uncertain-
ties, the conflicting inclinations of the past day, quick to seize
their opportunity, as is the habit of such discourteous gentry,
— returned upon her with redoubled importunity and force.

She had not seen Richard since parting with him at noon,
the enigmatic suggestions of his conversation still unresolved,
the alternate resentment at his apparent indiff'erence and at-
traction of his strong and somewhat mysterious personality
still vitally present to her. Later she had driven out to Poz-
zuoli. But neither stone-throwing urchins, foul and disease-
stricken beggars, the pale sulphur plains and subterranean
rumblings of the Solfaterra, nor stirring of nether fires therein
resident by a lanky, wild-eyed lad — clothed in leathern jerkin
and hairy, goatskin leggings — with the help of a birch broom
and a ^tw local newspapers, served eflfectually to rouse her
from inward debate and questioning. The comfortable, cee-
spring carriage might swing and sway over the rough, deep-
rutted roads behind the handsome, black, long-tailed horses,
the melodramatic-looking coachman might lash stone-throwing
urchins and anathematise them, their ancestors and descend-
ants, alike, to the third and fourth generation in the vilest,
Neapolitan argot, Charles might resort to physical force in the

44^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

removal of wailing, alms-demanding, vermin-eaten wrecks of
humanity, but still Helen asked herself only — should she go?
Should she stay ? Was the game worth the candle ? Was
the risk, not only of social scandal, but of possible ^«««/, worth
the projected act of revenge ? And worth something more
than that. For revenge, it must be owned, already took a
second place in her calculations. Worth, namely, the enjoy-
ment of possible conquest, the humiliation of possible defeat
and rejection, by that strangely coercive, strangely inscrutable,
being, her cousin, Dickie Calmady ?

No man had ever impressed her thus. And she returned
on her thought, when first seeing him upon the terrace that
morning, that she might lose her head. Helen laughed a little
bitterly. She, of all women, to lose her head, to long and
languish, to entreat affection, and to be faithful — heaven help
us, faithful ! — could it ever come to that ? — like any senti-
mental schoolgirl, like — and the thought turned her not a little
wicked — like Katherine Calmady herself! And then, that
other woman of whom Richard had told her, with a cynical
disregard of her own claims to admiration, who on earth could
she be ? She reviewed those ladies with whom gossip had
coupled Richard's name. Morabita, the famous prima donna^
for instance. But surely, it was inconceivable that mountain
of fat and good nature, with the voice of a seraph, granted,
but also with the intellect of a frog, could ever inspire so fan-
tastic and sublimated a passion ! And passing from these less
legitimate affairs of the heart — in which rumour accredited
Richard with being very much of a pluralist — her mind trav-
eled back to the young man's projected marriage with Lady
Constance Decies, sometime Lady Constance Quayle. Re-
membering the slow, sweet, baby-face and gentle, heifer's eyes,
as she had seen them that day at luncheon at Brockhurst,
nearly five years ago, she again laughed. — No, very certainly
there was no affinity between the glorious and naughty city
of Naples and that mild-natured, well-drilled, little, English
girl ! Who was it then — who ? But, whoever the fair un-
known rival might be, Helen hated her increasingly as the
hours passed, regarding her as an enemy, a creature to be ex-
terminated, and swept off^ the board. Jealousy pricked her de-
sire of conquest. An intrigue with Richard Calmady offered
lingular, unique attractions. But the force of such attrac-

RAKE'S PROGRESS

443

tions was immensely enhanced by the excitement of wresting
his affections away from another woman.

Suddenly, in the full swing of these meditations, as she re-
viewed them for the hundredth time, Zelie's voice claimed her
attention.

" I made the inquiries madame commanded."

^ Well ? " Helen said. She was standing fastening clusters
of topaz in the bosom of her dress.

"The servants in this house are very reserved. They are
unwilling to give information regarding their master's habits.
I could only learn that Sir Richard occupies the entresol.
Communicating as it does with the garden, no doubt it is con-
venient to a gentleman so afflicted as himself."

Helen bowed herself together, while the black lace and
China-crape skirt slipped over her head. Emerging from
which temporary eclipse, she said : —

" But do people stay here much ? Does my cousin enter-
tain ? That is what I told you to find out."

" As I tell madame, the servants are difficult of approach.
They are very correct. They fear their master, but they also
iidore him. Charles can obtain little more information than
myself. But he infers that Sir Richard, when at the villa,
lives in retirement — that he is subject to fits of melancholy.
There will be little diversion for madame it is to be feared !
But what would you have ? Even though one should be
young and rich ce ne serait que peu amusant d'etre estropie^
d'etre monstre enfin'''

Helen drew in her breath with a little sigh of content, while
taking a final look at herself in the oval glass. The soft, float-
ing draperies, the many jewels, each with its heart of quick,
yellow-pink light, produced a combination at once sombre and
vivid. It satisfied her sense of artistic fitness. Decidedly she
did well to begin with the black dress, since it had in it a qual-
ity rather of romance than of worldliness ! Meanwhile Zelie,
kneeling, straightened out the folds of the long train.

'^ Ah ! " she exclaimed. " I had forgotten also to inform
madame that M. Destournelle has arrived in Naples. Charles,
thinking of nothing less than such an encounter, met him this
morning on the quay of the Santa Lucia."

Helen wheeled round violently, much to the discomfiture of
those carefully adjusted folds.

444 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Intolerable man ! " she cried. " What on earth is he do-
ing here ? "

" That, Charles naturally could not inquire. — Will madame
kindly remain tranquil for a moment ? She has torn a small
piece of lace which must be controlled by a pin. Probably
monsieur is still en voyage^ is visiting friends as is madame herself."

A sudden distrust that the black dress was too mature, that
it constituted an admission of departing youth, invaded Helen.
The reflection in the oval mirror once more caused her dis-
comfort.

"Tell Charles that I am no longer acquainted with M.
Destournelle. If he presumes to call he is to be refused."

Helen set her teeth. But whether in anger towards her
discarded lover, or the black dress, she would have found it
difficult to declare. Again uncertainty held her, suspicion of
circumstance, and, in a degree, of herself. The lady's-maid,
imperturbable, just conceivably impertinent, in manner, had
risen to her feet.

"There," she said, "it will be secure for to-night, if ma-
dame will exercise a moderate degree of caution and avoid
abrupt movements. Charles says that monsieur inquired very
urgently after madame. He appeared dejected and in weak
health. He was agitated on meeting Charles. He trembled.
A little more and he would have wept. It would be well,
perhaps, that madame should give Charles her orders regarding
monsieur herself."

" You should not have made me wear this gown," Helen
broke out inconsequently. " It is depressing, it is hideous. I
war>j:, to change it."

" Impossible. Madame is already a little late, and there is
nothing wrong with the costume. Madame looks magnifi-
cent. Also her wardrobe is, at present, limited. The even-
ing dresses will barely suffice for a stay of a week, and it is
not possible for me to construct a new one under ten days."

Thereupon an opening of doors and voice from the ante-
room announcing : —

" Dinner is served, my lady. Sir Richard is in the dining-
room."

And Helen swept forward, somewhat stormy and Cassan-
dra-like in her dusky garments. Passing out through the high,
narrow doorway, she turned her head.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 445

" Charles, under no circumstance — none, understand — am I
at home to Monsieur Destournelle.'*

"Very good, my lady," and, as he closed the double-doors,
the man-servant looked at the lady's-maid his tongue in his cheek.

But, on the journey through the noble suite of rooms,
Helen's spirits revived somewhat. Her fair head, her warm
glancing jewels, her graceful and measured movements, as
given back by many tall mirrors, renewed her self-confidence.
She too must be fond of her own image, by the way, that un-
known rival to the dream of whose approval Richard Calmady
had consecrated these splendid furnishings — witness the mul-
tiplicity of looking-glasses ! — And then the prospect of this
tete-a-tete dinner, the interest of her host's powerful and enig-
matic personality, provoked her interest to the point not only
of obliterating remembrance of the ill-timed advent of her ex-
lover, but of inducing something as closely akin to self-forget-
fulness as was possible to her self-centred nature. She grew
hotly anxious to obtain, to charm — if it might be, to usurp the
whole field of Richard's attention and imagination.

A small round table showed as an island of tender light in
the dimness of the vast room. And Richard, sitting at it
awaiting her coming, appeared more nearly related to the
Richard of Brockhurst and of five years ago than he had done
during the interview of the morning. In any case, she took
him more for granted. While he, if still inscrutable and un-
smiling, proved an eminently agreeable companion, ready of
conversation, very much at his ease, very much a cultivated
man of the world, studious — a little excessively so, she thought
— in his avoidance of the personal note. And this at once
piqued Helen, and incited her to intellectual effort. If this
was what he wanted, well, he should have it ! If he elected
to talk of travel, of ancient and alien religions, of modern lit-
erature and art, she could meet him more than half-way. Her
intelligence ran nimbly from subject to subject, point to point.
She struck out daring hypotheses, indulged in ingenious para-
dox, her mind charmed by her own eloquence, her body com-
forted by costly wines and delicate meats. Nor did she fail to
listen also, knowing how very dear to every man is the sound
of his own voice, or omit to offer refined flattery of quick
agreement and seasonable laughter. It was late when she rose
from the table at last.

446 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" I have had a delightful dinner," she said. " Absolutely de-
lightful. And now I will encroach no longer on your time or
good nature, Richard. You have your own occupations, no
doubt. So, with thanks for shelter and generous entertain-
ment, we part for to-night."

She held out her hand smiling, but with an admirable effect
of discretion, all ardour, all intimacy, kept in check by self-
respect and well-bred dignity. Madame de Vallorbes was en-
chanted with the reserve of her own demeanour. Let it be
well understood that she was the least importunate, the least
exacting, the most adaptable, of guests !

Richard took her outstretched hand for the briefest period
compatible with courtesy. And a momentary spasm — ^so she
fancied — contracted his face.

" You are very welcome, Helen," he said. " If it is warm
let us breakfast in the pavilion to-morrow. Twelve — does
that suit you ? Good-night."

Upon the inlaid writing-table in the anteroom, Helen found
a long and impassioned epistle from Paul Destournelle. Pe-
rusal of it did not minister to peaceful sleep. In the small
hours she left her bed, threw a silk dressing-gown about her,
drew aside the heavy, blue-purple, window curtain and looked
out. The sky was clear and starlit. Naples, with its curv-
ing lines of innumerable lights, lay outstretched below. In
the southeast, midway between the two, a blood-red fire
marked the summit of Vesuvius. While in the dimly seen
garden immediately beneath — the paved alleys of which showed
curiously pale, asserting themselves against the darkness of the
flower borders, and otherwise impenetrable shadows of the ilex
and cypress grove — a living creature moved, black, slow of
pace, strange of shape. At first Helen took it for some
strayed animal. It alarmed her, exciting her to wildest con-
jectures as to its nature and purpose, wandering in the grounds
of the villa thus. Then, as it passed beyond the dusky shade
of the trees, she recognised it. Richard Calmady shufiled
forward haltingly, to the terminal wall of the garden, leaned
his arms on it, looking down at the beautiful and vicious city
and out into the night.

Helen de Vallorbes shivered — the marble floor striking up
chill, for all the thickness of the carpet, to her bare feet. Her
eyes hard with excitement and her breath came very

RAKE'S PROGRESS 447

quick. Suddenly, yielding to an impulse of superstitious
terror, she dragged the curtains together, shutting out that
very pitiful sight, and, turning, fled across the room and buried
herself, breathless and trembling, between the sheets of the
soft, warm, faintly fragrant bed.

"He is horrible," she said aloud, "horrible ! And it has
come to me at last. It has come — I love — I love 1 ''

CHAPTER IV

"mater admirabilis"

"' I ^HERE, there, my good soul, don't blubber. Hysterics

"^ won't restore Lady Calmady to health, or bring Sir
Richard back to England, home, and duty, or be a ha'porth
of profit to yourself or any other created being. Keep your
tears for the first funeral. For I tell you plainly I shan't be
surprised out of seven days' sleep if this business involves a
visit to the churchyard before we get to the other side of it."

John Knott stood with his back to the Chapel-Room fire,
his shoulders up to his ears, his hands forced down into the
pockets of his riding-breeches. Without, black-thorn winter
held the land in its cheerless grasp. The spring was late.
Night frosts obtained, followed by pallid, half-hearted sun-
shine in the early mornings, too soon obliterated by dreary,
easterly blight. This afternoon offered exception to the rule
only in the additional discomfort of small, sleeting rain and a
harsh skirling of wind in the eastward-facing casements. —
" Livery weather," the doctor called it, putting down his
existing lapse from philosophic tolerance to insuflicient secre-
tions of the biliary duct.

Before him stood Clara — sometime Dickie Calmady's de-
voted nurse and playfellow — her eyes very bright and moist,
the reds and whites of her fresh complexion in lamentable dis-
array.

" I'd never have believed it of Sir Richard," she assented,
chokingly. " It isn't like him, so pretty as he was in all his
little ways, and loving to her ladyship, and civilly behaved to
everybody, and careful of hurting anybody's feelings — more so

448 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

than you'd expect in a young gentleman like him. No ! it
isn't like him. In my opinion he's been got hold of by some
designing person, who's worked on him to keep him away to
serve their own ends. There, I'd never have believed it of
him, that I wouldn't ! "

The doctor's massive head sank lower, his massive shoulders
rose higher, his loose lips twisted into a snarling smile.

" Lord bless you, that's nothing new ! We none of us
ever do believe it of them when the little beggars are in long
clothes, or first breeched for that matter. It's a trick of
Mother Nature's — one-idead old lady, who cares not a pin for
morality, but only for increase. She knows well enough if we
did believe it of them we should clear them off wholesale,
along with the blind kittens and puppies. A bucket full of
water, and broom to keep them under, would make for a
mighty lessening of subsequent violations of the Decalogue !
Don't tell me King Herod was not something of a philan-
thropist when he got to work on the infant population of
Bethlehem. One woman wept for each of the little brats
then, but his Satanic Majesty only knows how many women
wouldn't have had cause to weep for each one of them later,
if they'd been spared to grow up."

While speaking, Dr. Knott kept his gaze fixed upon his
companion. His humour was none of the gentlest truly, yet
he did not let that obscure the main issue. He had business
with Clara, and merely waited till the reds and whites of her
comely face should have resumed their more normal relations
before pursuing it. He talked, as much to afford her oppor-
tunity to overcome her emotion, as to give relief to his own.
Though now well on the wrong side of sixty, John Knott virzs
hale and vigorous as ever. His rough-hewn countenance
bore even closer resemblance, perhaps, to that of some stone
gargoyle carved on cathedral buttress or spout. But his hand
was no less skilful, his tongue no less ready in denunciation
of all he reckoned humbug, his heart no less deeply touched,
for all his superficial irascibility, by the pains, and sins, and
grinding miseries, of poor humanity than of old.

^' That's right now," he said approvingly, as the heaving of
Clara's bosom became less pronounced. " Wipe your eyes,
and keep your nerves steady. You've got a head on your
shoulders — always had. Well, keep it screwed on the right

RAKE'S PROGRESS 449

way, for you'll need all the common sense that is in it if we
are to pull Lady Calmady through. Do? — To begin with
this, give her food every two hours or so. Coax her, scold
her, reason with her, cry even. — After all, I give you leave
to, just a little, if that will serve your purpose and not make
your hand shake — only make her take nourishment. If you
don't wind up the clock regularly, some fine morning you'll
find the wheels have run down."

" But her ladyship won't have any one sit up with her."

*^ Very well, then sleep next door. Only go in at twelve
and two, and again between five and six."

^^ But she won't have anybody occupy the dressing-room.
It used to be the night nursery you remember, sir, and not a
thing in it has been touched since Sir Richard moved down to
the gun-room wing."

" Oh, fiddle-de-dee ! It's just got to be touched now, then.
I can't be bothered with sentiment when it's ten to one
whether I save my patient."

Again sobs rose in Clara's throat. The poor woman was
hard pressed. But that fixed gaze from beneath the shaggy
eyebrows was upon her, and, with quaint gurglings, she fought
down the ^obs.

" My lady's as gentle as a lamb," she said, " and I'd give
the last drop of my blood for her. But talk of managing her,
of making her do anything, as well try to manage the wind,
she's that set in her ways and obstinate ! "

" If you can't manage her, who can ? — Mr. March ? "

Clara shook her head. Then reluctantly, for though hon-
estly ready to lay down her life for her mistress, she found it
far from easy to invite supersession in respect of her, she
said : — " Miss St. Quentin's more likely to get round my lady
than any one else."

"Well, then, I'll talk to her. Where is Miss St.
Quentin ? "

" Here, Dr. Knott. Do you want me ? "

Honoria had strolled into the room from the stairhead, her
attention arrested by the all-too-familiar sound — since sorrow-
ful happenings often of late had brought him to Brockhurst —
of the doctor's voice. The skirt of the young lady's habit,
gathered up in her left hand, displayed a slightly unconven-
tional length of muddy riding-boot. The said skirt, her tan,

450 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

covert coat, and slouched, felt hat, were furred with wet.
Her garments, indeed, showed evident traces of hard service,
and, though notably well cut, were far from new or smart.
They were sad-coloured, moreover, as is the fashion of gar-
ments designed for work. And this weather-stained, mud-
bespattered costume, taken in connection with her pale, sensi-
tive face, her gallant bearing, and the luminous smile with
which she greeted not only Dr. Knott but the slightly flustered
Clara, offered a picture pensive in tone, but very harmonious,
and of a singularly sincere and restful quality. To all, in-
deed, save those troubled by an accusing conscience and fear
of detection, Honoria St. Quentin's presence brought a sense
of security and reassurance at this period of her development.
Her enthusiasms remained to her, but they were tempered by a
wider experience and a larger charity — at least in the majority
of cases.

" I'm in a beastly mess," she observed casually.

" So are we," Knott answered. He had a great liking for
this young lady, finding in her a certain stoicism along with a
quickness of practical help. " But our mess is worse than
yours, in that it is internal rather than external. Yours'll
brush ofF. Not so ours — eh, Clara ? There, you can go.
ril talk things over with Miss St. Quentin, and she'll talk 'em
over with you later."

Honoria's expression had grown anxious. She spoke in a
lower tone of voice.

" Is Lady Calmady worse ? "

"In a sense, yes — simply because she is no better.
And she's ill, I tell you, just as dangerously ill as any
woman can be, who has nothing whatever actually the matter
with her."

^'Except an only son," put in Honoria. "I am be-
ginning to suspect that is about the most deadly disease going.
The only thing to be said in its favour is that it is not in-
fectious."

John Knott could not quite keep admiration from his eyes,
or provocation from his tongue. He richly enjoyed getting a
rise out of Miss St. Quentin.

" I am not so sure of that," he said. " In the case of beau-
tiful women, judging by history, it has shown a tendency to be
recurrently sporadic in any case."

RAKE'S PROGRESS 451

" Recommend all such to spend a few months at Brock-
hurst then, under existing circumstances," Honoria answered.
" There will be very little fear for them after that. They
will have received such a warning, swallowed such an anti-
dote ! — It is like assisting at the infliction of slow torture. It
almost gets on one's brain at times."

" Why do you stay on then ? "

Honoria looked down at her muddy boots and then across
at the doctor. She was slightly the taller of the two, for in
these days his figure had fallen together and he had taken to
stooping. Her expression had a delightful touch of self-
depreciation.

" Why does any one stay by a sinking ship, or volunteer for
a forlorn hope ? Why do you sit up all night with a case of
confluent smallpox, or suck away the poisonous membrane
from a diphtheric throat, as I hear you did only last week ? I
don't know. Just because, if we are made on certain lines,
we have to, I suppose. One would be a trifle too much
ashamed to be seen in one's own company, afterwards, if onje
deserted. It really requires less pluck to stick than to run — ■
that's the reason probably. — But about dear Lady Calmady.
The excellent Clara was in tears. Is there any fresh mischief
over and above the only son r "

" Not at present. But it's an open question how soon there
may be. — Good-day, Mr. March. Been riding ? Ought to
be a bit careful of that cranky chest of yours in this con-
founded weather. — Lady Calmady ? — Yes, as I was telling
Miss St. Quentin, her strength is so reduced that compli-
cations may arise any day. A chill, and her lungs may go ; a
shock, and her heart. It comes to a mere question of the
point of least resistance. I won't guarantee the continued
soundness of any organ unless we get changed conditions, a
let up of some sort."

The doctor looked up from under his eyebrows, first at
Honoria and then at Julius. He spoke bitterly, defiant of his
inclination towards tenderness.

" She's just worn herself out," he said, " that's the fact, in
the service of others, loving, giving, attempting the impossible
m the way of goodness all round. ' Be not righteous over
much' — there's a text to that effect in the Scriptures, Mr.
March, isn't there ? Preach a good, rattfing sermon on it

452 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

next Sunday to Lady Calmady, if you want to keep her here a
bit longer. Nature abhors a vacuum. Granted. But nature
abhors excess, even of virtue. And punishes it just as harshly
as excess of vice. — Yes, I tell you, she's worn herself out."

Miss St. Quentin dropped into a chair and sat bowed
together, her hands on her knees, her feet rather far apart.
The brim of her hat, pulled down in front to let the rain run
ofF^ partially concealed her face. She was not sorry, for a
movement of defective courage was upon her, evidence of
which she preferred to keep to herself. Julius March re-
mained silent. And this she resented slightly, for she badly
wanted somebody to say something, either vindictive or con-
solatory. Then, indignation getting the better alike of ret-
icence and charity, she exclaimed: —

" It is unpardonable. It ought to be impossible one person
should have power to kill another by inches, like this, with
impunity."

Ludovic Quayle had sauntered into the room behind Julius
March. He too was wet and dirty, but such trifles in no wise
affected the completeness of his urbanity. His long neck
directed forward, as in polite inquiry, he advanced to the
little group by the fire, and took up his station beside Honoria's
chair.

" Pardon me, my dear Miss St. Quentin," he asked
sweetly, " but why the allusions to murder ? What is un-
pardonable ? "

" Sir Richard Calmady's conduct," she answered shortly.
She threw back her head and addressed Dr. Knott. " It is so
detestably unjust. What possible quarrel has he with her,
after all ? "

'' Ah ! that — that — lies very deep. A thing, perhaps, only
a man, or a mother, can quite comprehend," the doctor
answered slowly.

Honoria's straight eyebrows drew together. She objected
to extenuating circumstances in this connection, yet, as she
admitted, reason usually underlay all Dr. Knott's statements.
She divined, moreover, that reason, just now, touched upon
matters inconveniently intimate. She abstained, therefore,
from protest or comment. But, since feminine emotion, even
in the least weakly of the sex, is bound to lind an outlet, she
turned upon poor*Mr. Quayle.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 453

" He is your friend," she said. " The rest of us are help-
less. You ought to take measures. You ought to suggest a
remedy."

"With all the pleasure in life," the young man answered.
" But you may remember that you delivered yourself of pre-
cisely ^e same sentiments a year and a half ago. And that,
fired with the ardour of a chivalrous obedience, I fled over the
face of the European continent in hot pursuit of poor, dear
Dickie Calmady."

" Poor, dear ! " ejaculated Honoria.

*^ Yes, very much poor, dear, through it all," the young man
affirmed. " Breathless, but still obedient, I came up with him
at Odessa."

" What was he doing there ? " put in the doctor.

Mr. Quayle regarded him not without humour.

" Really, I am not my friend's keeper, though Miss St.
Quentin is pleased to make me a handsome present of that
enviable office. And so — well — I didn't inquire what he was
doing. To tell the truth, I had not much opportunity, for
though I found him charming, — yes, charming. Miss St. Quen-
tin,— I also found him wholly unapproachable regarding ^mily
affairs. When, with a diplomatic ingenuity upon which I
cannot but congratulate myself, I suggested the advisability of
a return to Brockhurst, in the civilest way in the world he
showed me the door. Impertinence is not my forte, I am
by nature humble-minded. But, I give you my word, that
was a little episode of which I do not crave the repetition."

Growling to himself, clasping his hands behind his back,
John Knott shifted his position. Then, taken with that de-
sire of clergy-baiting, which would seem to be inherent in
members of the Faculty, he addressed Julius March.

" Come, now," he said, " your pupil doesn't do you ai)
overwhelming amount of credit it must be admitted, still you
ought to be able to give an expert's opinion upon the tendencies
of his character. How much longer do you allow him before
he grows tired of filling his belly with the husks the swine eat ? "

" God knows, not I," Julius answered sadly, but without
rancour. " I confess to the faithlessness of despair at times.
And yet, being his mother's son, he cannot but tire of it
eventually, and when he does so the revulsion will be final,
the restoration complete "

454 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" He'll die the death of the righteous ? Oh yes ! I agree
there, for there's fine stuff in him, never doubt that. He'll
end well enough. Only the beginning of that righteous end-
ing, if delayed much longer, may come a bit too late for the
saving of my patient's life and — reason."

" Do you mean it is as serious as all that ? " Ludovic asked
with sudden anxiety.

" Every bit as serious ! — Oh ! you should have let your
sister marry him, Mr. Quayle. Then he would have settled
down, come into line with the average, and been delivered
from the morbid sense of outlawry which had been growing
on him — it couldn't be helped, on the whole he has kept very
creditably sane in my opinion — from the time he began to
mix freely in general society. I'm not very soft or sickly
sentimental at my time of day, but I tell you it turns my
stomach to think of all he must have gone through, poor
chap. It's a merciless world. Miss St. Quentin, and no one
knows that better than we case-hardened old sinners of
doctors. — Yes, your sister should have married him, and we
might have been saved all this. I doubted the wisdom of the
step at the time. But I was a fool. I see now his mother's
instinct was right."

Mr. Quayle pursed up his small mouth and gently shrugged
his shoulders.

" It is a delicate subject on which to offer an opinion," he
said. " I debated it freely in the privacy of my inner con-
sciousness at the time, I assure you. If Lady Calmady had
lighted upon the right, the uniquely right, woman — perhaps
— yes. But to shore up a twenty-foot, stone wall with a wisp
of straw, — my dear doctor, does that proceeding approve itself
to your common sense ? And, as is a wisp of straw to such
a wall, so was my poor, little sister, — it's hardly flattering to
my family pride to admit it, — but thus indeed was she, and no
otherwise, to Dickie Calmady."

Whereupon Honoria glanced up gratefully at the speaker,
for even yet her conscience pricked her concerning the part
she had played in respect of that broken engagement. While
John Knott, observant of that upward glance, was once again
struck by her manifest sincerity, and the gallant grace of her,
heightened by those workmanlike and mud-bespattered gar-
ments. And, being so struck, he was once again tempted by,

RAKE'S PROGRESS 455

and once again yielded himself to, the pleasures of provoca-
tion.

" Marry him yourself, Miss St. Quentin,*' he growled, a
touch of earnest behind his raillery, " marry him yourself and
so set the rest of us free of the whole pother. I'd back you
to handle him or any fellow living, with mighty great suc-
cess, if you'd the mind to ! "

For a moment it seemed open to question whether that very
fair fish might not make short work of angler as well as of
bait. But Honoria relented, refusing provocation. And this
not wholly in mercy to the speaker, but because it offered her
an opportunity of reading Mr. Quayle a, perhaps useful, lesson.
Her serious eyes narrowed, and her upper lip shortened into a
delightful smile.

" Hopeless, Dr. Knott ! " she answered. " To begin with
he'll never ask me, since we like each other very royally ill.
And to end with — " she carefully avoided sight of Mr.
Quaylc — " I — you see — Fm not what you call a marrying
man."

CHAPTER V

EXIT CAMP

A BOUT twenty minutes later the young lady, still booted
and spurred, opened the door which leads from the
Chapel-Room into Lady Calmady's bedchamber. As she
did so a gentle warmth met her, along with a sweetness of
flowers. Within, the melancholy of the bleak twilight was
mitigated by the soft brightness of a pink-shaded lamp, and a
fitful flickering of firelight. This last, playing upon the blue-
and-white, Dutch tiling of the hearth and chimney-space, con-
ferred a quaint effect of activity upon the actors in the biblical
scenes thereon depicted. The patriarch Abraham visibly
flourished his two-inch sword above the prostrate form of
hapless Isaac. The elders pranced, unblushingly, in pursuit
of the chaste Susanna. While poor little Tobit, fish in hand,
clung anxiously to the flying draperies of his long-legged, and
all-too-peripatetic, guardian angel. Such profane vivacity, on

456 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the part of persons usually accounted sacred, offered marked
and almost cynical contrast to the extreme quiet otherwise
obtaining, accentuated the absoluteness, deepened the depth,
of it. For nothing stirred within the length and breadth of
the room, nor did any smallest sound disturb the prevailing
silence. At these southward-facing casements no harsh wind
shrilled. The embroidered curtains of the state-bed hung in
stiff", straight folds. The many-coloured leaves and branches
of the trees of the Forest of This Life were motionless. Care,
the Leopard, crouched, unobservant, forgetful to spring, while
the Hart was fixed spellbound in the midst of its headlong
flight. A spell seemed, indeed, to rest on all things, which
had in it more than the watchful hush of the ordinary sick-
room. It suggested a certain moral attitude — a quiet, not
acquiesced in merely, but promoted.

Upon Honoria — her circulation quickened by recent exer-
cise, her cheeks still tingling from the stinging sleet, her
retina still retaining impressions of the stern grandeur of the
wide-ranging fir woods and gray-brown desolation of the
moors — this extreme quiet produced an extremely disquieting
effect. Passing from the Chapel-Room and the society of her
late companions — all three persons of distinct individuality,
all three possessing, though from very differing standpoints, a
definitely masculine outlook on life — into this silent bed-
chamber, she seemed to pass with startling abruptness from
the active to the passive, from the objective to the subjective
side of things, from the world that creates to that which
obeys, merely, and waits. The present and masculine, with
its clear practical reason, its vigorous purposes, was exchanged
for a place peopled by memories only, dedicated wholly to
submissive and patient endurance. And this fell in extremely
ill with Honoria's present humour, while the somewhat un-
seemly antics of the small, scriptural personages, pictured
upon the chimney-space and hearth, troubled her imagination,
in that they added a point of irony to this apparent
triumph of the remote over the immediate, of tradition over
fact.

Nor as, stung with unspoken remonstrance, she approached
Lady Calmady was this sense of intrusion into an alien region
lessened, or her appreciation of the difiiculties of the mission
she had been deputed by doctor, priest, and amiable young

RAKE'S PROGRESS 457

fine gentleman — her late companions — to fulfil, by any means
lightened.

For Katherine lay back in the great rose-silk and muslin-
covered armchair, at right angles to the fireplace, motionless,
not a participant merely, so it seemed to the intruder, in that
all-embracing quiet, but the very source and centre of it, its
nucleus and heart. The lines of her figure were shrouded in
a loose, wadded gown of dove-coloured silk, bordered with
swan's-down. A coif of rare, white lace covered her upturned
hair. Her eyes were closed, the rim of the eye-socket being
very evident. While her face, though smooth and still gra-
ciously young, was so attenuated as to appear almost transpar-
ent. Now, as often before, it struck Honoria that a very
exquisite spiritual quality was present in her aspect — her whole
bearing and expression betraying, less the languor and defeat of
physical illness, than the exhaustion of long sustained moral
effort, followed by the calm of entire self-dedication and renun-
ciation of will.

On the table at her elbow were a bowl of fresh-picked
violets and greenhouse-grown tea-roses, some books of the
hour, both English and French, a miniature of Dickie at the
age of thirteen — the proud, little head and its cap of close-
cropped curls showing up against a background of thick-set
foliage. On the table, too, lay a well-worn, vellum-bound
copy of that holiest of books ever, perhaps, conceived by the
heart and written by the hand of man — Thomas a Kempis'
Imitation of Christ, It was open at the chapter which is thus
entitled — " Of the Zealous Amendment of our Whole Life."
While close against it was a packet of Richard's letters —
those curt, businesslike communications, faultlessly punctual
in their weekly arrival, which, while they relieved her anxiety
as to his material well-being, stabbed his mother's heart only
less by the little they said, than by all they left unsaid.

And looking upon that mother now, taking cognisance of
her surroundings, Honoria St. Quentin's young indignation,
once again, waxed hot. While, since it was the tendency of
her mind to run eagerly towards theory, tq pass from the
particular to the general, and instinctively to apprehend the
relation of the individual to the mass, looking thus upon
Katherine, she rebelled, not only against the doom of this one
woman, but against that doom of universal womanhood of

458 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

which she offered, just now, only too eloquent an example.
And a burning compassion animated Honoria for feminine as
against all masculine creatures, for the bitter patience demanded
of the passive, as against the large latitude permitted the active
principle; for the perpetual humiliation of the subjective and
spiritual under the heavy yoke of the objective and practical, —
for the brief joy and long barrenness of all those who are con-
demned to obey and to wait, merely, as against those who are
born to command and to create.

From a child she had been aware of the element of tragedy
inherent in the fact of womanhood. It had quickened exag-
gerations of sentiment in her at times, and pushed her into not
a little knight-errantry, — witness the affair of Lady Constance
Quayle's engagement. But, though more sober in judgment
than of old and less ready to get her lance in rest, the existence
of that tragic element had never disclosed itself more convinc-
ingly to her than at the present moment, nor had the necessity
to attempt the assuaging of the smart of it called upon her with
more urgent voice. Yet she recognised that such attempt
taxed all her circumspection, all her imaginative sympathy and
tact. Very free criticism of the master of the house, of his
sins of omission and commission alike, were permissible in the
Chapel-Room and in the presence of her late companions.
The subject, unhappily, had called for too frequent mention,
by now, for any circumlocution to be incumbent in the dis-
cussion of it. But here, in the brooding quiet of this bed-
chamber, and in Lady Calmady's presence, all that was
changed. Trenchant statements of opinion, words of blame,
were proscribed. The sinner, if spoken of at all, must be
spoken of with due reticence and respect, his wilfulness ignored,
the unloveliness of his conduct gently, even eagerly, explained
away.

And, therefore, it came about that this fair champion of
much-wronged womanhood, though fired with the zeal of
righteous anger, had to go very softly and set a watch before
her lips. But as she paused, fearful to break in too abruptly
upon Lady Calmady's repose, she began to question fearfully
whether speech was, in truth, still available as a means of com-
munication between herself and the object of her solicitude.
For Lady Calmady lay so very still, her sweet face showed so
transparent against the rose-silk, muslin-covered pillows, that

RAKE'S PROGRESS 459

the younger woman was shaken by a swift dread that Dr.
Knott's melancholy predictions had already found fulfilment,
and that the lovely, labour-wasted body had already let the
valiant, love-wasted soul depart.

" Cousin Katherine, dear Cousin Katherine," she called very
gently, under her breath, and then waited almost awestricken,
sensible, to the point of distress, alike of the profound quiet,
which it seemed as an act of profanity to have even assayed to
break, and of the malign activity of those little, scriptural
figures anticking so wildly in the chimney-space and on the
hearth.

Seconds, to Honoria of measureless duration, elapsed before
Lady Calmady gave sign of life. At length she moved her
hands, as though gathering, with infinite tenderness, some
small and helpless creature close and warm against her bosom.
Honoria's vision grew somewhat blurred and misty. Then,
with a long-drawn, fluttering sigh, Katherine looked up at the
tall, straight figure.

^' Dick — ah, you've come in ! My beloved — have you had
good sport ? " she said.

Honoria sat down on the end of the sofa, bowing her head.

" Alas, alas, it is only me. Cousin Katherine. Nothing bet-
ter than me, Honoria St. Quentin. Would that it were some
one better," and her voice broke.

But Lady Calmady had come into full possession of her-
self.

" My dear, I must have been dozing, and my thoughts had
wandered far on the backward road, as is the foolish habit of
thoughts when one grows old and is not altogether well and
strong." — Katherine spoke faintly, yet with an air of sweetly
playful apology. " One is liable to be confused, under such
circumstances, when one first wakes — and — you have the smell
of the sleet and the freshness of the moors upon you." She
paused, and then added : — " But, indeed, the confusion of sleep
once past, I could hardly have anything dearer for my eyes
first to light on than your very dear self."

Hearing which gracious words, indignation in th^ cause of
this woman, burning compassion for the wrongs and sorrows
of universal womanhood, both of which must be denied ut-
terance, worked very forcibly in Honoria. She bent down
and taking Lady Calmady's hand kissed it. And, as she did

46o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

this, her eyes were those of an ardent, yet very reverent
lover, and so, when next she spoke, were the tones of her
voice.

But Katherine, still anxious to repair any defect in her rec-
ognition and greeting, and still with that same effect of play-
ful self-depreciation, spoke first.

" I had been reviewing many things, with the help of blessed
Thomas a Kempis here, before I became so drowsy. The
dear man lays his finger smartly upon all the weak places in
one's fancied armour of righteousness. It is sometimes not
quite easy to be altogether grateful to him. For instance, he
has pointed out to me conclusively that I grow reprehensibly
selfish."

" Oh come, come ! " Honoria answered, in loving raillery.
" Thomas is acute to the point of lying if he has convinced
you of that ! "

" Unhappily, no," Katherine returned. " I know it, I fear,
without any pointing of Thomas's finger. But I rather
shirked admission of my knowledge — well, for the very bad
reason that I wanted very badly to put off the day of amend-
ment. Now the holy man has toupied my witness and " —
she turned her head against the pillows and looked full at the
younger woman, while her under-lip quivered a little. " My
dear, I have come to be very greedy of the comfort of your
companionship. I have been tempted to consider not your
advantage, but solely my own. The pointing finger of
Thomas has brought it home to me that Brockhurst and I are
feeding upon your generosity of time, and helpfulness, to an
unconscionable extent. We are devouring the best days of
your life, and hindering you alike from work and from pleas-
ure. It must not be. And so, my dear, I beg you go forth,
once more, to all your many friends and to society. You are
too young, and too gifted, to remain here in this sluggish
backwater, alongside a derelict like me. It is not right.
You must make for the open stream again and let the free
wind and the strong current bear you gladly on your appointed
course. And my gratitude and my blessing will go with you
always. But you must delay no longer. For me you have
done enough."

For a little space Honoria held her friend's hand in silence.

" Are — are — you tired of me then ? " she said.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 461

" Ah, my dear ! *' Katherine exclaimed. And the exclama-
tion was more reassuring, somehow, than any denial could
have been.

"After all," Honoria went on, "I really don't see why
you're to have a monopoly of faithfulness. There's selfish-
ness now, if you like — to appropriate a virtue en bloc not leav-
ing a rag, not the veriest scrappit of it for anybody else !
And then, has it never occurred to you, that I may be just
every bit as greedy of your companionship as you of mine —
more so, I fancy, because — because "

Honoria bowed her head and kissed the hand she held, once
again.

" You see — I know it sounds as if I was rather a beast — -
perhaps I am — but I never cared for any one — really to care,
I mean — till I cared for you."

'' My dear ! " — Katherine said again, wondering, shrinking
somewhat, at once touched and almost repulsed. The younger
woman's attitude was so far removed from her own experi-
ence.

" Does it displease you ? Does it seem to you unnatural ? '*
Honoria asked quickly.

"A little," Lady Calmady answered, smiling, yet very
tenderly.

" All the same it's quite true. You opened a door, some-
how, that had always been shut. I hardly believed in its ex-
istence. Of course I had read plenty about the — affections,
shall we call them ? And had heard women and girls, and
men, too, for that matter, talk about them pretty freely. But
it bored me a good deal. I thought it all rather silly, and
rather nasty perhaps." — Honoria shook her head. " It didn't
appeal to me in the least. But when you opened the door " —
she paused, her face very grave, yet with a smile on it, as she
looked away at the little figures anticking upon the hearth.
*^ Oh, dear me, I own I was half scared," she said, " it let in
such a lot of light ! "

But, for this speech, Lady Calmady had no immediate
answer. And so the quiet came back, settling down sensibly
on the room again — even as, when at dawn the camp is struck,
the secular quiet of the desert comes back and possesses its
own again. And, in obedience to that quiet, Katherine's
hand rested passively in the hand of her companion, while she

^■f

462 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

gazed wonderingly at the delicate, half-averted face, serious,
lit up by the eagerness of a vital enthusiasm. And, having a
somewhat sorrowful fund of learning to draw upon in respect
of the dangers all eccentricity, either of character or develop-
ment, inevitably brings along with it, she trembled, divining
that noble and strong and pure though it was, that face, and
the temperament disclosed by it, might work sorrow, both to
its possessor and to others, unless the enthusiasm animating it
should find some issue at once large and simple enough to en-
gage its whole aspiration and power of work.

But abruptly Honoria broke up the brooding quiet, laughing
gently, yet with a catch in her throat.

" And when you had let in the light, Cousin Katherine,
good heavens, how thankful I was I had never married. Pic-
ture finding out all that after one had bound oneself, after one
had given oneself! What an awful prostitution." — Her tone
changed and she stroked the elder woman's hand softly. " So
you see you can't very well order me off, the pointing finger
of Thomas notwithstanding. You have taught me "

" Only half the lesson as yet," Katherine said. " The
other half, and the doxology which closes it, neither I, nor any
other woman, can teach you."

" You really believe that ? "

" Ah ! my dear," Katherine said, " I do more than believe,
I know it."

The younger woman regarded her searchingly. Then she
shook her charming head.

" It's no good to arrive at a place before you've got to it,"
she declared. " And I very certainly haven't got to the
second half of the lesson, let alone the doxology, yet. And
then Pm so blissfully content with the first half, that I've no
disposition to hurry. No, dear Cousin Katherine, I am afraid
you must resign yourself to put up with me for a little while
longer. Your foes, unfortunately, are of your own household
in this affair. Dr. Knott has just been holding forth to us —
Julius March, and Mr. Quayle, and me — and swearing me
over, not only to stay, but to make you eat and drink and
come out of doors, and even to go away with me. Because —
yes, in a sense your Thomas is right with his pointing finger,
though he got a bit muddled, good man, not being quite up-tQ-«
date, and pointed to the wrong place — ^"

RAKE'S PROGRESS 163

Honoria left her sentence unfinished. She knelt dowxi .
her tall, slender figure, angular, more like that of a youth,
than like that of a maid, in her spare mud-stained habit and
coat. Impulsively she put her hands on Lady Calmady's
hips, laid her head in her lap.

" Have you but one blessmg, oh ! my more than mother ? **
she cried. " Do we count for nothing, all the rest of us — •.
your household, and tenants rich and poor, and Julius the
faithful, and Ludovic the bland, and that queer lump of sa-
gacity and ugliness, John Knott ? Why will you kill your-
self? Why will you die and leave us all, just because one
person is perverse ? That's hardly the way to make us — who
love you — bear with and pity him and welcome him home. —
Oh ! I know I am treading on dangerous ground and ventur-
ing to approach very close. But I don't care — not a hang !
We're at the end of our patience. We want you, and we
mean to have you back."

Honoria raised herself, knelt bolt upright, her hands on the
arms of Lady Calmady's chair, her expression full of appeal.

"Be kind to us, be kind," she said. "We only ask you,
after all, to eat and drink — to let Clara take care of you at
night, and I'll do so by day. — And then, when you are
stronger, you must come away with me, up north, to Ormiston.
You have not been there for years, and its gray towers are
rather splendid overlooking that strong, uneasy, northern sea.
It stirs the Viking blood in one, and makes that which was
hard seem of less moment. Roger and Mary are there, too —
will be all this summer. And you know it refreshed you to
see them last year. And if we go pretty soon the boys will
be at school, so they won't tire you with their racketing.
They're jolly monkeys, though, in my opinion, Godfrey wants
smacking. He comes the elder-brother a lot too much over
poor little Dick. — But that's neither here nor there. Oh !
it's for you to get out of the backwater into the stream, ten
times more than for me. Dearest physician, heal thyself! "

But Katherine, though deeply touched by the loving ardour
of the younger woman's appeal, and the revelation of tender-
ness and watchful care, constantly surrounding her, which that
appeal brought along with it, could not rouse herself to any
immediate response. Sternly, unremittingly, since the fair
July night when Richard had left her nearly five years earlier,

464 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

she had schooled herself into unmurmuring resignation and
calm. In the prosecution of such a process there must be loss
as well as gain. And Katherine had, in great measure,
atrophied impulse, and, in eradicating personal desire, had
come near destroying all spontaneity of emotion. She could
still give, but the power of receiving was deadened in her.
And she had come to be jealous of the quiet which surrounded
her. It was her support and solace. She asked little more
than not to have it broken up. She dreaded even affection,
should that strive to draw her from the cloistered way of life.
The world, and its many interests, had ceased to be of any
moment to her. She asked to be left to contemplation of
things eternal and to the tragedy of her own heart. And so,
though it was beautiful to know herself to be thus cherished
and held in high esteem, that beauty came to her as something
unrelated, as sweet words good to hear, yet spoken of some
person other than herself, or of a self she had ceased to be.
All privilege implies a corresponding obligation, and to the
meeting of fresh obligations Katherine felt herself not only
unequal, but indisposed. And so, she smiled now upon
Honoria St. Quentin, leaning back against the rose-silk and
muslin-covered pillows, with a lovely indulgence, yet rather
hopelessly unmoved and remote.

" Ah ! my dear, I am beyond all wish to be healed after the
fashion you, in your urgent loving-kindness, would have me,"
she said. " I look forward to the final healing, when my
many mistakes and shortcomings shall be forgiven and the
smart of them removed. And I am very tired. I do not
think it can be required of me to go back."

" I know, I know," Honoria replied. — She rose to her feet
and moved across to the fireplace, her straight eyebrows drawn
together, her expression one of perplexity. " I must seem a
brute for trying to drag you back. When Dr. Knott, and the
other two men, asked me to come and reason with you, I was
on the edge of refusing. I hardly had the heart to worry you.
And yet," she added wistfully, ''^ after all, in a way, it is just
simply your own, dear fault. For if you will be a sort of
little kingdom of heaven to us, you see, it's inevitable that,
when you threaten to slip away from us, we should play the
part of the violent and do our best to take our kingdom hy
force and keep it in spite or itself,"

RAKE'S PROGRESS 465

"You overrate the heavenliness of the poor little kingdom,"
Katherine said. " Its soil has become barren, its proud cities
are laid waste. It's an unprofitable place, believe me, dearest
child. Let it be. Seek your fortune in some kingdom from
which the glory has not departed and whose motto is not
Ichabodr

" Unfortunately, I can't do that," the younger woman an-
swered. " I've explained why already. Where my heart is,
there, you see, my kingdom is also."

" Ah ! my dear, my dear," Katherine said, touched, yet
somewhat weary.

"And after all it is not wholly for our own sakes we make
this fight to keep you." — Miss St. Quentin's voice sank. She
spoke slowly and as though with reluctance. " We do it for
the sake of the person you love best in the world. I don't
say we love him very much, but that is beside the mark. We
owe him a certain duty — I, because I am living in his house,
the others because they are his friends. When he comes
home — as come he surely will — they all say that, even while
they blame him — would it not be an almost too cruel punish-
ment if he found Brockhurst empty of your presence ? You
would not wish that. It's not a question of me, of course.
I don't count. But you gone, no one — not even the old serv-
ants, I believe — would stay. Blame would be turned into
something awkwardly near to hatred."

Lady Calmady's serenity did not desert her, but a touch of
her old loftiness of manner was apparent. And Miss St.
Quentin was very glad. Anything, even anger, would be
welcome if it dissipated that unnatural, paralysing calm.

" You forget Julius, I think," she said. " He will be faith-
ful to the very end, faithful unto death. And so will another
friend of happier days, poor, blind, old Camp."

A sudden inspiration came to Honoria St. Quentin.

"You must only count on Julius, I am afraid. Cousin
Katherine — not on Camp."

And to her immense relief she perceived Lady Calmady's
serenity give a little. It was as though she came nearer. Her
sweet face was troubled, her eyes full of questioning.

" Camp grew a little too tired of waiting about three weeks
ago. You did not ask for him "

" Didn't I ? " Katherine said, smitten by self-reproach.

466 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Never once — and so we did not tell you, fearing to dis-
tress you."

Miss St. Quentin came over and sat down on the end of
the sofa again. She rested her hands on her knees. Her feet
were rather far apart. She fixed her eyes upon the small
prophets and patriarchs anticking upon the hearth.

" But it wasn't really so very bad,'* she said reflectively,
" And we did all we could to smooth his passage, poor, dear
beast, to the place where all good dogs go. We had the vet
out from Westchurch two or three times, but there was
nothing much he could do. And I thought him a bit rough.
Nervousness, I fancy. You see the dog did not like being
handled by a stranger, and made it rather hot for him once or
twice. I could not let him be worried, poor old man, and so
Julius March, and Winter, and I, took turn and turn about
with him."

" Where did he die ? "

" In the Gun-Room, on the tiger-skin." — Honoria did not
look round. Her voice grew perceptibly husky. " Chifney
and I sat up with him that last night."

" You and Chifney ? " Lady Calmady exclaimed, almost in
protest.

"Yes. Of course the men would have been as kind as
kind could be. Only I had a feeling you would be glad to
know I was there, later, when we told you. You see Chif-
ney's as good as any vet, and I had to have somebody. The
dog was rather queer. I did not quite know how to manage
him alone."

Lady Calmady put out her hand. Honoria took it silently,
and fell to stroking it once more. It was a declaration of
peace, she felt, on the part of the obstinate well-beloved —
possibly a declaration of something over and above peace.

"Winter saw to our creature comforts," the young lady
continued. " Oh, we weren't starved, I promise you ! And
Chifney was excellent company."

She hesitated a moment.

" He told me endless yarns about horses — about Doncaster
and Newmarket, and Goodwood. I was greatly flattered at
being regarded sufficiently of the equestrian order to hear all
that. — And he told me stories about Richard, when he was
quite ^ little boy — and about his father al$Q,"

RAKE'S PROGRESS 467

Honoria had a conviction the tears were running
down Lady Calmady's cheeks, but she would not look
round. She only stroked the hand she held softly, and talked
on.

" They were fine," she said, " some of those stories. I am
glad to have heard them. They went home to me. When
all is said and done, there is nothing like breeding and pluck,
and the courtesy which goes along with them. But after
midnight Camp grew very restless. He had his blanket in the
big armchair — you know the one I mean — as usual. But he
wouldn't stay there. We had to lift him down. You see
his hindquarters were paralysed, and he couldn't help himself
much. It was pathetic. I can't forget the asking look in his
half-blind eyes. But we couldn't make out what he wanted.
At last he dragged himself as far as the door, and we set it
open and watched him, poor, dear beast. He got across the
lobby to the bottom of the little staircase "

The speaker's breath caught.

" Then we made out what it was. He wanted to get up
here, to come to you. — Well, I could understand that ! I
should want just that myself, shall want it, when it comes to
the last. He whimpered when Chifney carried him back into
the Gun-Room."

Honoria turned her head and looked Lady Calmady in the
face. Her own was more than commonly white and very
gentle in expression.

" He died in the gray of the morning, with his great head
on my lap. I fancy it eased him to have something human,
and — rather pitiful — close against him. Julius had just come
in to see how we were getting on. I won't declare he did not
say a prayer — I think he did. But I wasn't quite as steady
as I might have been just then."

She turned her head, looking back at the figures upon the
hearth. She was satisfied. Lady Calmady's long-sustained
calm had given way, and she wept.

'^ We buried him, in his blanket, under the big Portugal-
laurel, where the nightingale sings, at the corner of the troco-
ground, close to Camp the First and Old Camp. The upper
servants came, and Chaplin and Hariburt from the house-
stables, and Chifney and the head-lad — and some of the
gardeners. Poor, old Wenham drove up in his donkey-chair

468 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

from the west lodge. Julius was there, of course. We did

all things decently and in order."

Honoria's voice ceased. She sat stroking the dear hand she
held and smiling to herself, notwithstanding a chokiness in
her throat, for she had a comfortable belief the situation was
saved.

Then Clara entered, prepared to encounter remonstrance^
bearing a tray.

"It's all right, Clara," Miss St. Quentin said. "Lady
Calmady is quite ready for something to eat. Fve been tell-
ing her about Camp."

And Katherine, sitting upright, with great docility and a
certain gentle shame, accepted food and drink.

"Since you wish it, dearest," she said, "and since Julius
must not be left alone in a quite empty house."

" Our kingdom of heaven stays with us then ? " Honoria
exclaimed joyously.

" Such as it is — poor thing — it will do its best to stay. I
thought I had cried my eyes dry forever, long ago. But it
seems not. You and Camp have broken up the drought."

" I have not hurt you ? " Honoria said, in sudden penitence.

"No, no — you have given me relief. I was ceasing to be
human. The blessed Thomas was right — I grew very
selfish."

" But you're not displeased with me ?" Honoria insisted.
Lady Calmady's playfulness had returned, but with a new
complexion.

"Ah! it is a little soon to ask that! " she said. "Still I
will go north with you a fortnight hence — go to Ormiston.
And by then, perhaps, you may be forgiven. Open the case-
ment, dearest, and let in the wind. The air of this room is
curiously dead. Give my love to Julius and Ludovic. Tell
them I will come mto the Chapel-Room after dinner to-night.
— What — my child, are you so very glad ? — Kiss me. — God
keep you. — Now I will rest."

RAKE'S PROGRESS 469

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH M. PAUL DESTOURNELLE HAS THE BAD TASTE TO
THREATEN TO UPSET THE APPLE-CART

TLTELEN DE VALLORBES rose from her knees and
slipped out from under the greasy and frayed half-
curtain of the confessional box. The atmosphere of that
penitential spot had been such as to make her feel faint and
dizzy. She needed to recover herself. And so she stood, for a
minute or more, in the clear, cool brightness of the nave of the
great basilica, her highly-civilised figure covered by a chequer-
work of morning sunshine streaming dow^n through the round-
headed window^s of the lofty clere-storey. As the sense of
physical discomfort left her she instinctively arranged her
veil, and adjusted her bracelets over the wrists of her long
gloves. Yet, notwithstanding this trivial and mundane occu-
pation, her countenance retained an expression of devout
circumspection, of the relief of one who has accomplished a
serious and somewhat distasteful duty. Her sensations were
increasingly agreeable. She had rid herself of an oppressive
burden. She was at peace with herself and with — almost — all
man and womankind.

Yet, it must be admitted, the measure had been mainly pre-
cautionary. Helen had gone to confession, on the present
occasion, in much the same spirit as an experienced traveler
visits his dentist before starting on a protracted journey. She
regarded it as a disagreeable, but politic, insurance against
possible accident. Her distaste had been increased by the
fact that there really were some rather risky matters to be con-
fessed. She had even feared a course of penance might have
been enforced before the granting of absolution — this cer-
tainly would have been the case had she been dealing with
that firm disciplinarian and very astute man of the world, the
Jesuit father who acted as her spiritual adviser in Paris. But
here in Naples, happily, it was different. The fat, sleepy.

470 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

easy-going, old canon — whose person exuded so strong an
odour of snufF that, at the solemnest moment of the confiteor^
she had been unable to suppress a convulsive sneeze — asked
her but few inconvenient questions. Pretty fine-ladies will
get into little difficulties of this nature. He had listened to
very much the same story not infrequently before, and took
the position amiably, almost humorously, for granted. It
was very wicked, a deadly sin, but the flesh — specially such
delicately bred, delicately ^^di^ feminine flesh — is admittedly
weak, and the wiles of Satan are many. Is it not an historic
fact that our first mother did not escape ? — Was Helen's re-
pentance sincere, that was the point ? And of that Helen
could honestly assure him there was no smallest doubt. In-
deed, at this moment, she abhorred, not only her sin, but her
co-sinner, in the liveliest and most comprehensive manner.
Return to him ? Sooner the dog return to its vomit ! She
recognised the iniquity, the shame, the detestable folly, of her
late proceedings far too clearly. Temptation in that direction
had ceased to be possible.

Then followed the mysterious and merciful words of abso•^
lution. And Helen rose from her knees and slipped out from
beneath the frayed and greasy curtain a free woman, the guilt
of her adultery wiped ofF by those awful words, as, with a wet
cloth, one would wipe writing off a slate leaving the surface
of it clean in every part. Precisely how far she literally be-
lieved in the efficacy of that most solemn rite she would not
have found it easy to declare. Scepticism warred with expe-
diency. But that appeared to her beside the mark. It was
really none of her business. Let her teachers look to all that.
To her it was sufficient that she could regard it from the prac-
tical standpoint of an insurance against possible accident — the
accident of sin proving actually sinful and actually punishable
by a narrow-minded deity, the accident of the veritable exis-
tence of heaven and hell, and of Holy Church veritably hav-
ing the keys of both these in her keeping, the accident — more
immediately probable and consequently worth guarding against
— that, during wakeful hours, some night, the half-forgotten
lessons of the convent school would come back on her, and, as
did sometimes happen, would prove too much for her usually
victorious audacity.

But, it should be added that another and more creditable ii\-

RAKF/S PROGRESS 471

stinct did much to dictate Madame de Vallorbes' action at this
juncture. As the days went by the attraction exercised over
her by Richard Calmady suffered increase rather than diminu-
tion. And this attraction affected her morally, producing in
her modesties, reticencies of speech, even of thought, and
prickings of unflattering self-criticism unknown to her hereto-
fore. Her ultimate purpose might not be virtuous. But un-
deniably, such is the complexity — not to say hypocrisy — of
the human heart, the prosecution of that purpose developed in
her a surprising sensibility of conscience. Many episodes in
her career, hitherto regarded as entertaining, she ceased to
view with toleration, let alone complacency. The remem-
brance of them made her nervous. What if Richard came to
hear of them ? The effect might be disastrous. Not that he
was any saint, but that she perceived that, with the fine incon-
sistency common to most well-bred Englishmen, he demanded
from the women of his family quite other standards of conduct
to those which he himself obeyed. Other wome. might do
as they pleased. Their lapses from the stricter social code
were no concern of his. He might, indeed, be not wholly
averse to profiting by such lapses. But in respect of the
women of his own rank and blood the case was quite other-
wise. He was alarmingly capable of disgust. And, not a lit-
tle to her own surprise, fear of provoking, however slightly,
that disgust had become a reigning power with her. Never
had she felt as she now felt. Her own sensations at once
captivated and astonished her. This had ceased to be an ad-
venture dictated by merry devilry, undertaken out of light-
ness of heart, inspired by a mischievous desire to see dust
whirl and straws fly, or undertaken even out of necessity to
support self-satisfaction by ranging herself with cynical au-
dacity on the side of the Eternal Laughter. This was serious.
It was desperate — the crisis, as she told herself, of her life and
fate. The result was singular. Never had she been more
vividly, more electrically, alive. Never had she been more
diffident and self-distrustful.

And this complexity of sensation served to press home on
her the high desirability of insurance against accident, of wash-
ing clean, as far as might be possible, the surface of the slate.
So it followed that now, standing in the chequer-work of sun-
shine within the great basilica, self-congratulation awoke in

47^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

her. The lately concluded ceremony, some of the details of
which had really been most distasteful, might or might not be
of vital efficacy, but, in any case, she had courageously done
her part. Therefore, if Holy Church spoke truly, her first
innocence was restored. Helen hugged the idea with almost
childish satisfaction. Now she could go back to the Villa
Vallorbes in peace, and take what measure

She left the sentence unfinished. Even in thought it is
often an error to define. Let the future and her intentions re-
garding it remain in the vague ! She signed to Zelie Forestier
— seated on the steps of a side-chapel, yellow-paper-covered
novel in hand — to follow her. And, after making a genuflex-
ion before the altar of Our Lady of the Immaculate Concep-
tion, gathered up her turquoise-coloured skirts — the yellow-tufa
quarries were not superabundantly clean — and pursued her way
towards the great main door. The benevolent priest, charmed
by her grace of movement, watched her from his place in the
confessional, although another penitent now kneeled within the
greasy curtain. Verily the delinquencies of so delectable a
piece of womanhood were easily comprehensible! Neither
God nor man, in such a case, would be extreme to mark what
was done amiss. — Moreover, had she not promised generous
gifts alike to church and poor ? The sin which in an ugly
woman is clearly mortal, in a pretty one becomes little more
than venial. Making which reflection a kindly, fat chuckle
shook his big paunch, and, crossing himself, he turned his at-
tention to the voice murmuring from behind the wooden lat-
tice at his side.

Yet it would appear that abstract justice judged less leniently
of the position. For, passing out on to the portico — about
the base of whose enormous columns half-naked beggars clus-
tered, exposing sores and mutilations, shrilly clamouring for
alms — the dazzling glare of the empty, sun-scorched piazza
behind him, Helen came face to face with no less a personage
than M. Paul Destournelle.

It was as though some one had struck her. The scene reeled
before her eyes. Then her temper rose as in resentment of
insult. To avoid all chance of such a meeting she had se-
lected this church in an unfashionable quarter of the town.
Here, at least, she had reckoned herself safe from molestation.
And, that precisely in the hour of peace, the hour of politic

RAKE'S PROGRESS 473

insurance against accident, this accident of all others should
befall her, was maddening ! But anger did not lessen her per-
spicacity. How to inflict the maximum of discomfort upon
M. Destournelle with the minimum of risk to herself was the
question. An interview was inevitable. She wanted, very
certainly, to get her claws into him, but, for safety's sake, that
should be done not in attack, but in defense. Therefore he
should speak first, and in his words, whatever those words
might be, she promised herself to discover legitimate cause
of offense. So, leisurely, and with studied ignorance of his
presence, she flung largesse of centissimi to right and left, and,
while the chorus of blessing and entreaty was yet loud, walked
calmly past M. Destournelle down the wide, shallow steps,
from the solid shadow of the portico to the burning sun-glare
of the piazza.

The young man's countenance went livid.

" Do you dare to pretend not to recognise me ? *' he literally
gasped.

" On the contrary I recognise you perfectly."

" I have written to you repeatedly."

" You have — written to me with a ridiculous and odious
persistence."

Madame de Vallorbes picked her steps. The pavement was
uneven, the heat great. Destournelle's hands twitched with
agitation, yet he contrived not only to replace his Panama hat,
but opened his white umbrella as a precaution against sun-
stroke. And this diverted, even while exasperating, Helen.
Measures to ensure personal safety were so characteristic of
Destournelle.

" And with what fault, I ask you, can you reproach me,
save that of a too absorbing, a too generous, adoration ? "

" That fault in itself is very sufficient."

*' Do you not reckon, then, in any degree, with the crime you
are in process of committing ? Have you no sense of gratitude,
of obligation ? Have you no regret for your own loss in leav-
ing me ? "

Helen drew aside to let a herd of goats pass. They jostled
one another impudently, carrying their inquisitive heads and
short tails erect, at right angles to the horizontal line of their
narrow backs. They bleated, as in impish mischief. Their
little beards wagged. Their little hoofs pattered on the stone|

474 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

and the musky odour of them hung in the burning ain
Madame de Vallorbes put her handkerchief up to her face,
and over the edge of it she contemplated Paul Destournelle.
Every detail of his appearance was not only familiar, but as-
sociated in her mind with some incident of his and her com-
mon past. Now the said details asserted themselves, so it
seemed to her, with an impertinence of premeditated provoca-
tion.— The high, domed skull, the smooth, prematurely-thin
hair parted in the middle and waved over the ears. The
slightly raised eyebrows, and fatigued, red-lidded, and vain,
though handsome eyes. The straight, thin nose, and winged,
open nostrils, so perpetually a-quiver. The soft, sparse,
forked beard which closely followed the line of the lower jaw
and pointed chin. The moustache, lightly shading the upper
lip, while wholly exposing the fretful and rather sensuous
mouth. The long, effeminate, and restless hands. The tall,
slight figure. The clothes, of a material and pattern fondly
supposed by their wearer to present the last word of English
fashion in relation to foreign travel, the colour of them ac-
curately matched to the pale, brown hair and beard. — So much
for the detail of the young man's appearance. As a whole,
that appearance was elegant as only French youth ventures to
be elegant. Refinement enveloped Paul Destournelle — refine-
ment, over- sensitised and under-vitalised, as that of a rare
exotic forced into precocious blossoming by application of
some artificial horticultural process. And all this — elaborately
effective and seductive as long as one should happen to think
so, elaborately nauseous when one had ceased so to think —
had long b'sen familiar to Helen to the point of satiety. She
turned wicked, satiety transmuting itself into active vindic-
tiveness. How gladly would she have torn this emasculated
creature limb from limb, and flung the lot of it among the ref-
use of the Neapolitan gutter !

But, from beneath the shade of his umbrella, the young
man recommenced his plaint.

" It is inconceivable that, knowing my cruel capacity for
suffering, you should be indifferent to my present situation,'*
he asserted, half violently, half fretfully. " The whole range
of history would fail to offer a case of parallel callousness.
You, whose personality has penetrated the recesses of my be-
ing 1 You, who arc acquainted with the infinite intricacy of

RAKE'S PROGRESS 475

my mental and emotional organisation ! A touch will en-
danger the harmony of that exquisite mechanism. The in-
terpenetration of the component parts of my being is too com-
plete. I exist, I receive sensations, I suffer, I rejoice, as a
whole. And this lays me open to universal, to incalculable,
pain. Now my nerves are shattered — intellectual, moral,
physical anguish permeate in every part. 1 rally my self-
reverence, my nobility of soul. I make efforts. By day I
visit spots of natural beauty and objects of art. But these
refuse to gratify me. My thought is too turgid to receive the
impress of them. Concentration is impossible to me.
Feverish agitation perverts my imagination. My ideas are
fugitive. I endure a chronic delirium. This by. day," he
extended one hand with a despairing gesture, "but by
night "

" Oh, I implore you," Helen interrupted, " spare me the
description of your nights ! The subject is a hardly modest
one. And then, at various times, I have already heard so very
much about them, those nights ! "

Calmly she resumed her walk. The amazing vanity of the
young man's speech appeased her, in a measure, since it fed
her contempt. Let him sink himself beyond all hope of re-
covery, that was best. Let him go down, down, in exposition
of fatuous self-conceit. When he was low enough, then she
would kick him ! Meanwhile her eyes, ever greedy of inci-
dent and colour, registered the scene immediately submitted to
them. In the centre of the piazza, women — saffron and
poppy-coloured handkerchiefs tied round their dark heads —
washed, with a fine impartiality, soiled linen and vegetables in
an iron trough, grated for a third of its length, before a foun-
tain of debased and flamboyant design. Their voices were
alternately shrill and gutteral. It was perhaps as well not to
understand too clearly all which they said. On the left came
a break in the high, painted house-fronts, off" which in places
the plaster scaled, and from the windows of which protruded
miscellaneous samples of wearing apparel and bedding solicit-
ing much-needed purification by means of air and light. In
the said break was a low wall where coarse plants rooted, and
atop of which lay some half-dozen ragged youths, outstretched
upon their stomachs, playing cards. The least decrepit of the
beggars, armed with Helen's largesse of copper coin, had

476 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

joined them from beneath the portico. Gambling, seasoned
by shouts, imprecations, blows, grew fast and furious. In the
steep roadway on the right a dray, loaded with barrels, creaked
and jolted upward. The wheels of it were solid discs of
wood. The great, mild-eyed, cream-coloured oxen strained,
with slowly swinging heads, under the heavy yoke. Scarlet,
woolen bands and tassels adorned their broad foreheads and
wide-sweeping, black-tipped horns, and here and there a scar-
let drop their flanks, where the goad had pricked them too
shrewdly. And upon it all the unrelenting southern sun
looked down, and Helen de Vallorbes' unrelenting eyes looked
forth. One of those quick realisations of the inexhaustible
excitement of living came to her. She looked at the elegant
young man walking beside her, apprised, measured, him. She
thought of Richard Calmady, self-imprisoned in the luxurious
villa, and of the possibilities of her, so far platonic, relation to
him. She glanced down at her own rustling skirts and
daintily-shod feet traveling over the hot stones, then at the
noisy gamblers, then at the women washing, with that con-
summate disregard of sanitation, food and raiment together in
the rusty iron trough by the fountain. The violent contrasts,
the violent lights and shadows, the violent diversities of pur-
pose and emotion, of rank, of health, of fortune and mis-
fortune, went to her head. Whatever the risks or dangers that
excitement remained inexhaustible. Nay, those very dangers
and risks ministered to its perpetual upflowing. It struck her
she had been over-scrupulous, weakly conscientious, in ma-
king confession and seeking absolution. Such timid moralities
do not really shape destiny, control or determine human fate.
The shouting, fighting youths there, with their filthy pack of
cards and few centissimi^ sprawling in the unstinted sunshine,
were nearer the essential truth. They were the profound, be-
cause the practical philosophers ! Therefore let us gamble,
gamble, gamble, be the stake small or great, as long as the
merest flicker of life, or fraction of uttermost farthing, is left !
And so, when Destournelle took up his lament again, she listened
to him, for the moment, with remarkable lightness of heart.

" I appeal to you in the name of my as yet unwritten
poems, my masterpieces for which France, for which the
whole brotherhood of letters, so anxiously waits, to put a
term to this appalling chastisement ! "

RAKE'S PROGRESS 477

" Delicious ! " said Helen, under her breath.

" Your classicism is the natural complement of my
mediaevalism. The elasticity, the concreteness, of your tem-
perament fertilised the too-brooding introspectiveness of my
own. It lightened the reverence which I experience in the
contemplation of my own nature. It induced in me the hint
of frivolity which is necessary to procure action. Our union
was as that of high-noon and impenetrable night. I antici-
pated extraordinary consequences."

"Marriage of a butterfly and a bat? Yes, the progeny
should be surprising, little animals certainly,*' commented
Madame de Vallorbes.

"In deserting me you have rendered me impotent. That
is a crime. It is an atrocity. You assassinate my genius."

" Then, indeed, I have reason to congratulate myself on my
ingenuity," she returned, " since I succeeded in the assassina-
tion of the non-existent ! "

" You, who have praised it a thousand times — you deny the
existence of my genius ? " almost shrieked M. Destournelle.
He was very much in earnest, and in a very sorry case. His
limbs twitched. He appeared on the verge of an hysteric
seizure. To plague him thus was a charmingly pretty sport,
but one safest carried on with closed doors — not in so public
a spot.

" I do not deny the existence of anything, save your right
to make a scene and render me ridiculous as you repeatedly
did at Pisa." \

" Then you must return to me."

« Oh ! la, la ! " cried Helen.

" That you should leave me and live in your cousin's house
constitutes an intolerable insult."

"And where, pray, would you have me live?" she re-
torted, her temper rising, to the detriment of diplomacy.
" In the street ? "

" It appears to me the two localities are synonymous —
morally."

Madame de Vallorbes drew up. Rage almost choked her.
M. Destournelle's words stung the more fiercely because the
insinuation they contained was not justified by fact. They
brought home to her her non-success in a certain direction.
They called up visions of that unknown rival, to whom — ah,

478 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

how she hated the woman ! — Richard Calmady's affections
were, as she feared, still wholly given. That her relation to
him was innocent, filled her with humiliation. First she
turned to Zelie Forestier, who had followed at a discreet dis-
tance across the piazza.

" Go on,'* she said, " down the street. Find a cab, a clean
one. Wait in it for me at the bottom of the hill."

Then she turned upon JVI. Destournelle.

"Your mind is so corrupt that you cannot conceive of an
honest friendship, even between near relations. You fill me
with repulsion — I measured the depth of your degeneracy at
Pisa. That is why I left you. I wanted to breathe in an un-
infected atmosphere. My cousin is a person of remarkable
intellectual powers, of chivalrous ideals, and of superior char-
acter. He has had great troubles. He is far from well. I
am watching over and nursing him.'*

The last statement trenched boldly on fiction. As she
made it Madame de Vallorbes moved forward, intending to
follow the retreating Zelie down the steep, narrow street.
For a minute M. Destournelle paused to recollect his ideas.
Then he went quickly after her.

"Stay, I implore you," he said. "Yes, I own at Pisa I
lost myself. The agitation of composition was too much for
me. My mind seethed with ideas. I became irritable. I
comprehend I was in fault. But it is so easy to recommence,
and to range oneself. I accept your assurances regarding your
cousin. It is all so simple. You shall not return to me.
You shall continue your admirable work. But I will return
to you. I will join you at the villa. My society cannot fail
to be of pleasure to your cousin, if he is such a person as you
describe. In a mnieu removed from care and trivialities I
will continue my poem. I may even dedicate it to your
cousin. I may make his name immortal. If he is a person
of taste and ideals, he cannot fail to appreciate so magnificent
a compliment. You will place this before him. You will
explain to him how necessary to me is your presence. He
will be glad to cooperate in procuring it for me. He will
understand that in making these propositions 1 offer him a
unique opportunity, I behave towards him with signal gener-
osity. And if, at first, the intrusion of a stranger into his
household should appear mconvenient, let him but pause a

RAKE'S PROGRESS 479

little. He will find his reward in the development of my
genius and in the spectacle of our mutual felicity."

Destournelle spoke with great rapidity. The street which
they had now entered, from the far end of the piazza, was
narrow. It was encumbered by a string of laden mules, by a
stream of foot passengers. Interruption of his monologue,
short of raising her voice to screaming pitch, was impossible
to Madame de Vallorbes. But when he ceased she addressed
him, and her lips were drawn away from her pretty teeth
viciously.

" Oh ! you unspeakable idiot ! " she said. " Have you no
remnant of decency ? "

" Do you mean to imply that Sir Richard Calmady would
have the insolence, is so much the victim of insular prejudice
as, to object to our intimacy ? "

Madame de Vallorbes clapped her hands together in a sort
of frenzy.

" Idiot, idiot," she repeated. " I wish I could kill you."

Suddenly M. Paul Destournelle had all his wits about him.

" Ah ! " he said, with a short laugh, curiously resembling
in its malice the bleating of the little goats, " I perceive that
which constitutes the obstacle to our union. It shall be re-
moved."

He lifted his Panama hat with studied elegance, and turning
down a break-neck, side alley, called, over his shoulder: —

^^Abientot trh chere madameJ^

CHAPTER VII

SPLENDIDE MENDAX

TpsTPUNCTUALITY could not be cited as among
^ Madame do Vallorbes' offenses. Yet, on the morning
in question, she was certainly very late for the twelve o'clock
breakfast. Richard Calmady — awaiting her coming beneath
the glistering dome of the airy pavilion, set in the angle of the
terminal wall of the high-lying garden — had time to become
conscious of slight irritation. It was not merely that he was
constitutionally impatient of delay, but that hi§ nerves were

48o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

tiresomely on edge just now. Trifles had power to endanger
his somewhat stoic equanimity. But when at length Helen
emerged from the house irritation was forgotten. Moving
through the vivid lights and shadows of the ilex and cypress
grove, her appearance had a charm of unwonted simplicity.
At first sight her graceful person had the effect of being
clothed in a religious habit. Richard's youthful delight in
seeing a woman walk beautifully remained to him. It re-
ceived satisfaction now. Helen advanced without haste, a
certain grandeur in her demeanour, a certain gloom, even as
one who takes serious counsel of himself, indifferent to ex-
ternal things, at once actor in, and spectator of, some drama
playing itself out in the theatre of his own soul. And this
effect of dignity, of self-recollection, was curiously heightened
by her dress — of a very soft and fine, woolen material, of
spotless white, the lines of it at once flowing and statuesque.
While as head-gear, in place of some startling construction
of contemporary, Parisian millinery, she wore, after the modest
Italian fashion, a black lace mantilla over her bright hair.

Arrived, she greeted Richard curtly, and without apology for
delay accepted the contents of the first dish offered to her by
the waiting men-servants, ate as though determinedly and put-
ting a force upon herself, and — that which was unusual with
her before sundown — drank wine. And, watching her, in-
voluntarily Richard's thought traveled back to a certain
luncheon party at Brockhurst, graced by the presence of
genial, puzzle-headed Lord Fallowfeild and members of his
numerous family, when Helen had swept in, even as now, had
been self-absorbed, even as now. Of the drive to Newlands,
all in the sad November afternoon, following on that luncheon,
he also thought, of communications made by Helen during
that drive, and of the long course of event and action directly
or indirectly consequent on those communications. He
thought of the fog, too, enveloping and almost choking him^
when in the early morning driven by furies, still virgin in body
as in heart, he had ridden out into a blank and sightless world
hoping the chill of it would allay the fever in his blood, — and
of the fog again, in the afternoon, from out which the
branches of the great trees, like famine-stricken arms in tat-
tered draperies, seemed to pluck evilly at the carriage, as he
walked the smoking horses up and down the Newlands* drive,

RAKE'S PROGRESS 481

waiting for Helen to rejoin him. And now, somehow, that
fog seemed to come up between him and the well-furnished
breakfast-table, between him and the radiant expanse of the
vivacious, capricious, half-classic, half-modern, mercantile city
outstretched there, teeming, breeding, fermenting, in the
fecundating heat of the noonday sun. The chill of the fog
struck cold into his vitals now, giving him the strangest phys-
ical sensation. Richard straightened himself in his chair,
passed his hands across his eyes impatiently. Brockhurst, and
all the old life of it, was a subject of which he forbade him-
self remembrance. He had divorced himself from all that,
cut himself adrift from it long ago. By an act of will, he
tried to put it out of his mind now. But the fog remained —
an actual clouding of his physical vision, blurring all he looked
upon. It was horribly uncomfortable. He wished he was
alone. Then he might have slipped down from his chair and,
according to his poor capacity of locomotion, sought relief in
movement.

Meanwhile, silently, mechanically, Helen de Vallorbes con-
tinued her breakfast. And as she so continued, in addition to
his singular physical sensations of blurred vision and clinging
chill, he became aware of a growing embarrassment and con-
straint between himself and his companion. So far, his and
her intercourse had been easy and spontaneous, because super-
ficial. Since that first interview on the terrace a tacit agree-
ment had existed to avoid the personal note. Now, for cause
unknown, that intercourse threatened entering upon a new
phase. It was as though the concentration, the tension, which
he observed in her, and of which he w^as sensible in himself,
must of necessity eventuate in some unbosoming, some act —
almost involuntary — of self-revelation. This unaccustomed
silence and restraint seemed to Richard charged with conse-
quences which, in his present condition of defective volition,
he was powerless to prevent. And this displeased him,
mastery of surrounding influences being very dear to him.

At last, coffee having been served, the men-servants with-
drew to the house, but the constraint was not thereby lessened.
Helen sat upright, her chin resting upon the back of her left
hand, her eyes, under their drooping lids, looking out with a
veiled fierceness upon the fair and glittering prospect. Rich-
ard saw her face in profile. The black mantilla draped her

482 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

shoulders and bust with a certain austerity of effect. It was
evident that — by something — she had been stirred to the ex-
tinction of her habitual vivacity and desire to shine. And
Richard, for all his coolness of head and rather cynical ma-
turity of outlook, had a restless suspicion of going forth — "
even as on that foggy morning at Brockhurst — into a blank
and sightless world, full of hazardous possibility, where the
safe way was difficult of discovery and where masked dangers
might lurk. Solicitous to dissipate his discomfort he spoke a
little at random.

"You must forgive me for being such an abominably bad
host," he said courteously. " I am not quite the thing this
morning, somehow. I had a little go of fever last night. My
brain is like so much pulp."

Helen dropped her hand upon the table as though putting a
term to an importunate train of thought.

" I have always understood the villa to be remarkably free
from malaria," she remarked abstractedly.

" So it is. I quite believe that. The servants certainly
keepi well enough. But so, unfortunately, is not the port."

Helen turned her head. A vertical line was observable be-
tween her arched eyebrows.

" The port ? " she repeated.

Richard swallowed his black coffee. Perhaps it might
steady him and clear his head. The numbness of his facul-
ties and senses alike exasperated him, filling him with a per-
suasion he would say precisely those things wisdom would
counsel to leave unsaid.

" Yes — you know I generally go down and sleep on board
the yacht."

There was a momentary pause. Madame de Vallorbes'
lips parted in a soundless exclamation. Then she pushed
back the modest folds of the mantilla, leaving her neck free.
The action of her hands was very graceful as she did this,
and she looked fixedly at Richard Calmady.

" I did not know that," she said slowly. Then added, as
though reasoning out her own thought : — " And Naples har-
bour is admittedly one of the most pestilential holes on the
face of the earth. Are you not tempting providence in the
matter of disease, Richard ? Are you not rather wantonly in-
discreet i "

RAKE'S PROGRESS 483

" On the contrary/' he answered, and something of mock-
ery touched his expression, " I see it quite otherwise. I have
been congratulating myself on the praiseworthy abundance of
my discretion."

And the words were no sooner out of his mouth than Rich-
ard cursed himself for a bungler, and a slightly vulgar one at
that. But upon his hearer those same words worked a re-
markable change. Her gloom, her abstraction, departed,
leaving only a pretty pensiveness. She smiled with chastened
sweetness upon Richard Calmady — a smile nicely attuned to
the semi-religious simplicity of her dress.

" Ah ! perhaps we are both a trifle out of sorts this morn-
ing ! " she said. " I, too, have had my little turn of sickness
— sickness of heart. And that seems unfair, since I rose in
the best disposition of spirit. Quite early I went to con-
fession."

" Confession ? " Richard repeated. '' I did not know your
submission to the Church carried you to such practical
lengths."

*' Evidently we are each fated to make small discoveries re-
garding the habits of the other, to-day," she rejoined. " Pos-
sibly confession is to me just what those nights spent on
board the yacht, lying in that malodorous harbour, are to
you ! " •

Helen's smile broadened to a dainty naughtiness, infinitely
provoking. But pensiveness speedily supervened. She folded
her hands upon the edge of the table and looked down at
them meditatively.

" I relieved my conscience. Not that there was much to
relieve it of, thank heaven ! We have lived austerely enough
most of us, this winter in France. Only it becomes a matter
of moral, personal cleanliness, after a time, all that — exag-
gerated, but very comfortable. Just as one takes one's bath
twice daily, not that it is necessary but that it is a luxury of
physical purity and self-respect, so one comes to go to con-
fession. That is a luxury of moral purification. It is as a
bath to the soul, ministering to the perfection of its cleanli^
ness and health."

She looked up at Richard smiling, that same dainty naughtl'
ness very present.

You observe I am eminently candid, I tell you exactly

u

484 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

how my religion affects me. I can only reach high-thinking
through acts which are external and concrete. In short, I am
a born sacramentalist."

And Richard listened, interested and entertained. Yet,
since that strange blurring of fog still confused his vision and
his judgment, vaguely suspicious that he missed the main
intent of her speech. Suspicious as one who, listening to the
clever patter of a conjurer, detects in it the effort to distract
attention from some difficult feat of legerdemain, until that
feat has passed from attempt merely into accomplished fact.

"And, indirectly, that is where my heart-sickness comes
in," she continued, with a return to something of her former
abstraction and gloom. " I was coming away, coming back
here — and I was very happy. It is not often one can say
that. And then — pouf—Yik^ that,'' she brought her hands
smartly together, " the charming bubble burst ! For, upon the
very church steps, I met a man whom I have every cause to
hate."

As she spoke, the fog seemed to draw away, burnt up by the
great, flaming sun-god there. Richard's brain grew clear —
clearer, indeed, than in perfect health — and his still face grew
more still than was, even to it, quite natural.

"Well ? " he asked, almost harshly.

And Helen, whose faith in her own diplomacy had
momentarily suffered eclipse, rejoiced. For the tone of his
voice betrayed not disgust, but anxiety. It stirred her as a
foretaste of victory. And victory had become a maddening
necessity to her. Destournelle had forced her . hand. His
natural infirmity of purpose relieved her of the fear he could
work her any great mischief. Yet his ingenuity, inspired by
wounded vanity, might prove beyond her calculations. It is
not always safe to forecast the future by experience of the past
in relation to such a being as Destournelle ! Therefore it be-
came of supreme importance, before that gentleman had time
further to obtrude himself, to bind Richard Calmady by some
speech, some act, from which there was no going back. And
more than just that. The sight of her ex-lover, though she
now loathed him — possibly just because she so loathed himr —
provoked passion in her. It was as though only in a new
intrigue could she rid herself of the remembrance of the old
intrigue which was now so detestable to her. She craved to

RAKE'S PROGRESS 485

do him that deepest, most ultimate, despite. And passion
cried out in her. The sight of him, though she loathed him,
had made her utterly weary of chastity. All of which emotions
— but held as hounds in a leash, ready to be slipped when the
psychological moment arrived, and by no means to be slipped
until the arrival of it — dictated the tenor of her next speech.

" Well," she answered, with an air of half-angry sincerity
altogether convincing, " I really don*t know that I am par-
ticularly proud of the episode. I know I was careless, that I
laid myself open to the invidious comment, which is usually
the reward of all disinterested action. One learns to accept it
as a matter of course. And you see Paul Destournelle "

" Oh, Destournelle ! " Richard exclaimed.

"You have read him ? "

" Every one has read him."

" And what do you think of him ? "

" That his technique is as amazingly clever as his thought
:is amazingly rotten."

" I know — I know," she said eagerly. " And that is just
what induced me to do all I could for him. If one could cut
the canker away, give him backbone and decency, while re-
taining that wonderful technique, one would have a second
and a greater Theophile Gautier."

Richard was looking full at her. His face had more colour,
more animation, than usual.

" If — yes — if," he returned. " But that same if bulks
mighty big to my mind."

" I know," she repeated. " Yet it seemed to me worth the
attempt. And then, you understand, — who better ? — that if
one's own affairs are not conspicuously happy, one has all the
more longing the affairs of others should be crowned with
success. And this winter specially, among the sordid miseries,
disgraces, deprivations, of the siege, one was liable to take
refuge in an over-exalted altruism. It was difficult in so mad
a world not to indulge in personal eccentricity — to the neglect
of due worship of the great goddess Conventionality. With
death in visible form at every street corner, one's sense of
humour, let alone one's higher faculties, rebelled against the
futility of such worship. So many detestable sights and
sounds were perpetually presented to one — not to mention
broth of abominable things daily for dinner — that one turned.

486 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

with thanksgiving, to beautiful form in art, to perfectly
felicitous words and phrases. The meaning of them mattered
but little just then. They freed one from the tyranny of more
or less disgusting fact. They satisfied eye and ear. One
asked nothing more just then — luckily, you will say, since the
animal Destournelle has very surely nothing more to give."

In speaking, Helen pushed her chair back, turning it side-
ways to the table. Her speech was alive with varied and tell-
ing inflections. Her smallest gesture had in it something
descriptive and eloquent.

^' And so I fell to encouraging the animal," she continued^
almost plaintively, yet with a note of veiled laughter in her
voice. " Reversing the order of Circe — Naples inclines one
to classic illustration, sometimes a little hackneyed — by the
way, speaking of Naples, look at the glory of it all just now,
Richard ! — I tried to turn, not men to swine, but swine to
men. And I failed, of course. The gods know best. They
never attempt metamorphosis on the ascending scale ! I let
Destournelle come to see me frequently. The world advised
itself to talk. But, being rather bitterly secure of myself, I
disregarded that. If one is aware that one's heart was finally
and long ago disposed of, one ceases to think seriously of that
side of things. You must know all that well enough — witness
the sea-born furnishings of my bedroom up-stairs ! "

For half a minute she paused. Richard made no com-
ment.

" Hard words break no bones," she added lightly. " And
so, to show how much I despised all such censorious cackle,
I allowed Destournelle to travel south with me when I left
Paris."

"You pushed neglect of the worship of conventionality
rather far," Richard said.

Helen rose to her feet. Excitement gained on her, as
always during one of her delightful improvisations, her talented
viva voce improvements on dry-as-dust fact. She laughed
softly, biting her lip. More than one hound had been slipped
by now. They made good running. She stood by Richard
Calmady, looking down at him, covering him, so to speak,
with her eyes. The black mantilla no longer veiled her bright
head. It had fallen to the ground, and lay a dark blot upon
the mellow fairness of the tesselated pavement. White-robed,

RAKE'S PROGRESS 487

statuesque — ^yet not with the severe grace of marble, but with
that* softer, more humanly seductive grace of some figure of
cunningly tinted ivory — she appeared, just then, to gather up
in herself all the poetry, the intense and vivid light, the
victorious vitality, of the clear, burning, southern noon.

"Ah, well, conventionality proved perfectly competent to
avenge herself!" she exclaimed. '^ The animal Destour-
nelle took the average, the banal view, as might have been an-
ticipated. He had the insane presumption to suppose it was
himself, not his art, in which I was interested. I explained
his error, and departed. I recovered my equanimity. That
took time. I felt soiled, degraded. And then to-day I meet
him again, unashamed, actually claiming recognition. I re-
peated my explanation with uncompromising lucidity "

Richard moved restlessly in his chair, looking up almost
sharply at her.

" Waste of breath," he said. " No explanation is lucid if
the hearer is unwilling to accept it."

And then the two cousins, as though they had reached un-
expectedly some parting of the ways, calling for instant de-
cision in respect of the future direction of their journey, gazed
upon one another strangely — each half defiant of the other,
each diligent to hide his own and read the other's thought,
each sensible of a crisis, each at once hurried and arrested by
suspicion of impending catastrophe, unless this way be chosen
that declined — though it seemed, in good truth, not in their
keeping, but in that of blind chance only that both selection
and rejection actually resided. And, in this strait, neither
habit of society, fine sword-play of diplomacy and tact, availed
to help them. For suddenly they had outpaced all that, and
brought up amongst ancient and secular springs of action and
emotion before which civilisation is powerless and the ready
tongue of fashion dumb.

But even while he so gazed, in fateful suspense and inde-
cision, the fog came up again, chilling Richard Calmady's
blood, oppressing his brain as with an uprising of foul miasma,
blurring his vision, so that Helen's fair, downward-gazing face
was distorted, rendered illusive and vague. And, along with
this, distressing restlessness took him, compelling him to seek
relief in change of posture and of place. He could not stop
to reckon with how that which he proposed to do might strike

488 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

an onlooker. His immediate sensations filled his whole hori-
zon. Silently he slipped down from his chair, stood a* mo-
ment, supporting himself with one hand on the edge of the
table, and then moved forward to that side of the pavilion
which gave upon the garden. Here the sunshine was hot
upon the pavement, and upon the outer half of each pale, slender
column. Richard leant his shoulder against one of these,
grateful for the genial heat.

Since her first and somewhat inauspicious meeting with him
in childhood, Helen had never, close at hand, seen Richard
Calmady walk thus far. She stared, fascinated by that cruel
spectacle. For the instant transformation of the apparently
tall, and conspicuously well-favoured, courtly gentleman, just
now sitting at table with her, into the shuffling, long-armed,
dwarfed and crippled creature was, at first utterly incredible,
then portentous. All the primitive instinct of her womanhood
called aloud in her that she must wed — must wed. And the
strident voice of the great, painted city coming up lo her,
urgent, incessant, carried the same message, as did the radiant
sea, whose white lips kissed the indented coast-line as though
pale and hungry with love. He was to her of all living men
most desirable, so that she must win him and hold him.

In a few steps, light as those of the little, rose-crowned
dancer of long ago, she followed him across the shining floor.
There was a point of north in the wind, adding exhilaration
to the firm sunshine as ice to rare wine. The scent of nar-
cissus, magnolia, and lemon blossom was everywhere. The
cypresses yielded an aromatic, myrrh-like sweetness. The up-
rising waters of the fountain, set in the central alley,
, swerved southward, falling in a jeweled rain. Helen, in her
spotless raiment, came close and Richard Calmady turned to
her. But his eyes no longer questioned hers. They were as
windows opening back on to empty space, seeing all, yet tell-
ing nothing. His face had become still again and inscrutable,
lightened only by that flickering, mocking smile. It seemed
as though the psychological moment were passed and social
sense, ordinary fashions of civilised intercourse, had not only
come back but come to stay.

'* I think we will omit Destournelle from our talk in future,"
he said. '*As a subject of conversation I find he disagrees

RAKE'S PROGRESS 489

with me, notwithstanding his felicity of style and his admirable
technique. I will give orders which, I hope, may help to pro-
tect you from annoyance in future. In this delightful land,
by wise exercise of just a little bribery and corruption, it is
still possible to make the unwelcome alien prefer to seek
health and entertainment elsewhere. Now, will you like to go
back to the house ? "

The approach to the pavilion from the lower level of the
garden was by a carefully graded slope of Roman brick, set
edgewise. At regular intervals of about eighteen inches this
was crossed — on the principle of a gang-plank — by raised
marble treads. Without waiting for his cousin's reply, Rich-
ard started slowly down the slope. At the best of times this
descent for him demanded caution. Now his vision was
again so queerly blurred that he miscalculated the distance be-
tween the two lowest treads, slipped and stumbled, lunging
forward. Quick as a cat, Madame de Vallorbes was behind
him, her right hand grasping his right elbow, her left hand un-
der his left armpit.

*' Ah ! Dickie, Dickie, don't fall ! " she cried, a sudden ter-
ror in her voice.

Her muscles hardened like steel. It needed all her strength
to support him, for he was heavy, his body inert as that of one
fainting. For a moment his head rested against her bosom ;
and her breath came short, sighing against his neck and
cheek.

By sheer force of will Richard recovered his footing, disen-
gaging himself from her support, shuffling aside from her.

*' A thousand thanks, Helen," he said.

Then he looked full at her, and she — untender though she
was — perceived that the perspective of space on which, as
windows might, his eyes seemed to open back, was not empty.
It was peopled, crowded — even as those steep, teeming byways
of Naples — by undying, unforgetable misery, humiliation, re-
volt.

*' Y^s, it is rather unpardonable to be — as I am — isn't it?'*
he said. Adding hastily, yet with a certain courteous dignit)^ :
-— **I am ashamed to trouble you, to ask you — of all people—

490 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

to run messages for me — but would you go on to the
house "

•* Dickie, why may not I help you? " she interrupted.

*' Ah I " he said, ''the answer to that lies away back in the
beginning of things. Even unlucky devils, such as myself, are
not without a certain respect for that which is fitting, for seem-
liness and etiquette. Send one of my men please. I shall be
very grateful to you — thanks. "

And Helen de Vallorbes, her passion baulked and therefore
more than ever at white heat, swept up the paved alley, amid
the sweet scents of the garden, beneath the jeweled rain of the
fountain, that point of north in the wind dallying with her as
in laughing challenge, making her the more mad to have her
way with Richard Calmady, yet knowing that of the two — he
and she — he was the stronger as yet.

CHAPTER VIII

IN WHICH HELEN DE VALLORBES LEARNS HER RIVAL's NAME

" T HEAR Morabita sings, in Ernani^ at the San Carlo on
^ Friday night. Do you care to go, Helen ? "

The question, though asked casually, had, to the listener,
the effect of falling v^ith a splash, as of a stone into a well,
awakening unexpected echoes, disturbing, rather harshly, the
constrained silence which had reigned during the earlier part
of dinner.

All the long, hot afternoon, Madame de Vallorbes had been
alone — Richard invisible, shut persistently away in those
rooms of the entresol into which, as yet, she had never suc-
ceeded in penetrating. Richard had not proposed to her to
do so. And it was part of that praiseworthy discretion which
she had agreed with herself to practise — in her character of
scrupulously unexacting guest — only to accept invitations,

RAKE'S PROGRESS 491

never to issue them. How her cousin might occupy himself,
whom even he might receive, during the time spent in those
rooms, she did not know. And it was idle to inquire.
Neither of her servants, though skilful enough, as a rule, in
the acquisition of information, could, in this case, acquire
any. And so it came about that during those many still
bright hours, following on her rather agitated parting with
Richard at midday, while she paced the noble rooms of the
first floor — once more taking note of their costly furnishings
and fine pictures, meeting her own restless image again and
again in their many mirrors — and later, near sundown, when
she walked the dry, brown pathways of the ilex and cypress
grove, the wildest suspicions of his possible doings assailed
her. For she was constrained to admit that, though she had
spent a full week now under his roof, it was but the veriest
fringe, after all, of the young man's habits and thought with
which she was actually acquainted. And this not only desper-
ately intrigued her curiosity, but the apartness, behind which
he entrenched himself and his doings, was as a slight put upon
her and consequent source of sharp mortification. So to-day
she ranged all permitted spaces of the villa and its grounds
softly, yet lithe, watchful, fierce as a she-panther — her ears
strained to hear, her eyes to see, driven the while by jealousy
of that nameless rival, to remembrance of whom all the whole
place was dedicated, and by baffled passion, as with whips.

Nor did superstition fail to add its word of ill-omen at this
juncture. A carrion crow, long-legged, heavy of beak, alight-
ing on the clustered curls of the marble bust of Homer,
startled her with vociferous croakings. A long, narrow,
many-jointed, blue-black, evil-looking beetle crawled from
among the rusty, fibrous, cypress roots across her path. A
funeral procession, priest and acolytes, with lighted tapers,
sitting within the glass-sided hearse at head and foot of the
flower-strewn coffin, wound slowly along the dusty, white
road — bordered by queer growth of prickly-pear and ragged,
stunted palm-trees — far below. She crossed herself, turning
hurriedly away. Yet, for an instant. Death, triumphant,
hideous, inevitable, and all the spiritual terror and physical
disgust of it, grinned at her, its fleshless face, as it seemed,
close against her own. And alongside Death — by some
malign association of ideas and ugly antic of profanity — she

;^()± SIR RICHARD CALMADY

saw the bel tete de Jesu of M. Paul Destournelle as she had
seen it this morning, he looking back, hat in hand, as he
plunged down the break-neck, Neapolitan side-street, with
that impish, bleating, goatlike laugh.

By the time the dinner-hour drew near she found her out-
look in radical need of reconstruction, and to that end bade
Zelie dress her in the crocus-yellow brocade, reserved for
some emergency such as the present. It was a gown, surely,
to restore self-confidence and induce self-respect! Fashioned
fancifully, according to a picturesque, seventeenth-century,
Venetian model, the full sleeves and the long-waisted bodice
of it — this cut low, generously displaying her shoulders and
swell of her bosom — were draped with superb guipure de
Flandres a brides frisees and strings of seed pearls. All trace
of ascetic simplicity had very certainly departed. Helen was
resplendent- — strings of seed pearls twisted in her honey-
coloured hair, a clear red in her cheeks and hard brilliance in
her eyes, bred of eager jealous excitement. She had, indeed,
reached a stage of feeling in which the sight of Richard
Calmady, the fact of his presence, worked upon her to the
extent of dangerous emotion. And now this statement of his,
and the question following it, caused the flame of the inward
fires tormenting her to leap high.

" Ah ! Morabita ! " she exclaimed. " What an age it is
since I have heard her sing, or thought about her ! How is
her voice lasting, Richard ? "

" I really don't know," he answered, " and that is why I
am 'rather curious to hear her. There was literally nothing
but a voice in her case — no dramatic sense, nothing in the
way of intelligence to fall back on. On that account it in-
terested me to watch her. She and her voice had no essential
relation to one another. Her talent was stuck into her, as
you might stick a pin into a cushion. She produced glorious
effects without a notion how she produced them, and gave ex-
pression— and perfectly just expression — to emotions she had
never dreamed of. At the best of times singers are a feeble
folk intellectually, but, of all singers I have known, she was
mentally the very feeblest."

" No, perhaps she was not very wise," Helen put in, but
quite mildly, quite kindly.

'' And so if the voice went, everything went. And that

RAKE'S PROGRESS 493

made one reflect agreeably upon the remarkably haphazard
methods employed by that which we politely call Almighty
God in His construction of our unhappy selves. Design ? —
There's not a trace of design in the whole show. Bodies,
souls, gifts, superfluities, deficiencies, just pitched together
anyhow. The most bungling of human artists would blush to
turn out such work."

Richard spoke rapidly. He had refused course after course.
And now the food on his plate remained untasted. Seen in
the soft light of the shaded candles his face had a strange look
of distraction upon it, as though he too was restless with an
intimate, deep-seated restlessness. His skin was less colour-
less than usual, his manner less colourless also. And this
conferred a certain youthfulness on him, making him seem
nearer — so Helen thought — to the boy she had known at
Brockhurst, than to the man, whom lately, she had been so
signally conscious that she failed to know.

"No, I hope Morabita's voice remains to her," he con-
tinued. ^' Her absolute nullity minus it is disagreeable to
think of. And much as I relish collecting telling examples
of the fatuity of the Creator — she, voiceless, would offer a
supreme one — I would spare her that, poor dear. For she
was really rather charming to me at one time."

" So it was commonly reported," Helen remarked.

"Was it?" Richard said absently.

Though as a rule conspicuously abstemious, he had drunk
rather freely to-night, and that with an odd haste of thirst.
Now he touched his champagne tumbler, intimating to Bates,
the house-steward — sometime the Brockhurst under butler —
that it should be refilled.

"I can't have seen Morabita for nearly three years," he
went on. " And my last recollections of her are unfortunate.
She had sent me a box, in Vienna it was I think, for the
Travlata, She was fat then, or rather, fatter. Stage furniture
leaves something to desire in the way of solidity. In the
death scene the middle of the bed collapsed. Her swan-song
ceased abruptly. Her head and heels were in the air, and the
very largest rest of her upon the floor, bed and bedclothes
standing out in a frill all around. It was a sight discourag-
ing to sentiment. I judged it kinder not to go to supper with
her after the performance that night/'

494 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Richard paused, again drained his glass.

" I beg your pardon," he said, " what atrocious nonsense I
am talking ! "

" I think I rather enjoy it," Madame de Vallorbes answered.
She looked at the young man sideways, from under her
delicate eyelids. He was perfectly sober — of that there was
no question. Yet he was less inaccessible, somehow, than
usual. She inclined to experiment. — " Only I am sorry for
Morabita in more ways than one, poor wretch. But then
perhaps I am just a little sorry for all those women whom you
reject, Richard."

" The women whom I reject ? " he said harshly.

"Yes, whom you reject," Helen repeated. — Then she
busied herself with a small black fig, splitting it deftly open,
disclosing the purple, and rose, and clear living greens of the
flesh and innumerable seeds of it, colours rich as those of a
tropic sky at sunset. — " And there are so many of those
women it seems to me ! I am coming to have a quite pathetic
fellowship for them." She buried her white teeth in the soft-
ness of the fig. — " Not without reason, perhaps. It is idle to
deny that you are a pastmaster in the ungentle art of rejection.
What have you to say in self-defense, Dickie ^ "

"That talking nonsense appears to be highly infectious —
and that it is a disagreeably oppressive evening."

Helen de Vallorbes smiled upon him, glanced quickly over
her shoulder to assure herself the servants were no longer
present — then spoke, leaning across the corner of the table
towards him, while her eyes searched his with a certain daring
provocation.

" Yes, I admit I have finished my fig. Dinner is over.
And it is my place to disappear according to custom." — She
laid her rosy finger-tips together, her elbows resting on the
table. "But I am disinclined to disappear. I have a number
of things to say. Take that question of going to the opera,
for instance. Half Naples will be there, and I know more
than half Naples, and more than half Naples knows me. I
do not crave to run incontinently into the arms of any of de
Vallorbes' many relations. They were not conspicuously
kind to me when I was here as a girl and stood very much in
need of kindness. So tne question of going to the San Carlo,
you see, requires reflection. And then," — her tone softened

RAKE'S PROGRESS 495

to a most persuasive gentleness, — "then, the evenings are a
trifle long vv^hen one is alone and has nothing very satisfactory
to think about. And I have been w^orried to-day, detestably
worried." — She looked down at her finger-tips. Her ex-
pression became alm.ost sombre. " In any case I shall not
plague you very much longer, Richard," she said rather
grandly. " I have determined to remove myself bag and bag-
gage. It is best, more dignified to do so. Reluctantly I own
that. Here have I no abiding city. I wish I had, perhaps,
but I haven't. Therefore it is useless, and worse than use-
less, to play at having one. One must just face the truth."

She looked full at the young man, smiling at him, as though
somehow forgiving him a slight, an unkindness, a neglect.

"And so, just because to you it all matters so uncommonly
little, let us talk rather longer this evening."

She rose.

"I'll go on into the long drawing-room," she said. "The
windows were still open there when I came in to dinner.
The room will be pleasantly cool. You will come ? "

And she moved away quietly, thoughtfully, opened the high
double-doors, left them open, and that without once looking
back. Yet her hearing was strained to catch the smallest
sound above that which accompanied her, namely, the rustling
of her dress. Then a queer shiver ran all down her spine
and she set her teeth, for she perceived that halting, shuffling
footsteps had begun to follow those light and graceful foot-
steps of her own.

" Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute^'* she said to herself.
*' I have no fear for the rest."

Yet, crossing the near half of the great room, she sank
down on a sofa, thankful there was no farther to go. In the
last few minutes she had put forth more will-power, felt more
deeply, than she had supposed. Her knees gave under her.
It was a relief to sit down.

Tl/e many candles in the cut-glass chandeliers, hanging
from along the centre of the painted ceiling, were lighted, fill-
ing the length and breadth of the room with a bland, diffused
radiance. It touched picture and statue, tall mirror, rich cur-
tain, polished woodwork of chair and table, gleaming ebony
and ivory cabinet. It touched Helen de Vallorbes' bright
head and the strings of pearls twisted in her hair, her white

49^ SIR RICHARD CALMADY

neck, the swell of her bosom, and all that delicate wonder of
needlework — the Flanders' lace — trimming her bodice. It
lay on her lap, too, as she leaned back in the corner of the
sofa, her hands pressed down on either side her thighs — lay
there bringing the pattern of her brocaded dress into high
relief. This was a design of pomegranates — leaves, flowers,
^nd fruit — and of trailing, peacock feathers, a couple of shades
lighter than the crocus-yellow ground. The light took the
over-threads and stayed in them.

The window stood wide open on to the balcony, the
elaborately wrought-ironwork of which — scroll and vase,
plunging dolphin and rampant sea-horse — detached itself from
the opaque background of the night. And in at the window
came luscious scents from the garden below, a chime of fall-
ing water, the music, faint and distant, in rising and falling
cadence of a marching military band. In at it also, and rising
superior to all these in imperativeness and purpose, came the
voice of Naples itself — no longer that of a city of toil and
commerce, but that of a city of pleasure, a city of licence,
until such time as the dawn should once again break, and the
sun arise, driving back man and beast alike to labour, the one
from merry sinning, the other from hard-earned sleep. And
once again, but in clearer, more urgent, accents, the voice of
the city repeated its message to Helen de Vallorbes, calling
aloud to her to do even as it was doing, namely, to wed — to
wed. And, hearing it, understanding that message, for a little
space shame took her, in face both of its and her own shame-
lessness, so that she closed her eyes, unable for the moment
to look at Richard Calmady as he crossed the great room in
that bland and yet generous light. But, almost immediately,
his voice, cold and measured in tone, there close beside her,
claimed her attention.

" That which you said at dinner rather distresses me,
Helen."

Then, shame or no shame, Madame de Vallorbes, of neces-
sity, opened her eyes. And, so doing, it needed all her self-
control to repress a cry. She forced her open hands down
very hard on the mattress of the sofa. For Richard leaned
his back against the jamb of the open window, and she saw
his face and all his poor figure in profile. His left hand hung
Straight at his side, the tips of his fingers only just not touch-

RAKE'S PROGRESS

497

ing the floor. And again, as at midday the spectacle of his
deformity worked upon her strangely.

" What of all that which I said at dinner distresses you ? "
she asked gently, with sudden solicitude.

"You showed me that I have been a wretchedly negligent
host." — In speaking, the young man turned his head and
looked at her, paused a moment, almost startled by her re-
splendent aspect. Then he looked down at his own stunted
and defective limbs. His expression became very grim. He
raised his shoulders just perceptibly. " I reproach myself
with having allowed you to be so much alone. It must have
been awfully dull for you."

" It was a little dull," Helen said, still gently.

" I ought to have begged you to ask some of the people you
know in Naples to come here. It was stupid of me not to
think of it. I need not have seen them, neither need they
have seen me."

He looked at her steadily again, as though trying to fix her
image in his memory.

" Yes, it was stupid of me," he repeated absently. " But I
have got into churlish, bachelor habits — that can hardly be
helped, living alone, or on board ship, as I do — and I have
pretty well forgotten how to provide adequately for the enter-
tainment of a guest."

Oh ! I have had that which I wanted, that which I came
for," Helen answered, very charmingly, — " had it in part, at
all events. Though I could have put up with just a little
more of it, Dickie, perhaps."

"I warned you, if you remember, that opportunities of
amusement — as that word is generally understood — would be
limited."

" Amusement ? " she exclaimed, with an almost tragic
inflection of contempt.

" Oh yes ! " he said, " amusement is not to be despised. I'd
give all I am worth, half my time, to be amused — but that
again, like hospitality, is rather a lost art with me. You
remember, I warned you life at the villa in these days was
not precisely hilarious."

Helen clapped her hands together.

" Ah ! you are wilfully obtuse, you are wilfully, cruelly pig-
headed ! " she cried. " Pardon me, dear Richard, but your

C(

498 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

attitude is enough to exasperate a saint. And I am no saint
as yet. I am still human — radically, for my own peace of
mind lamentably, human. I am only too capable of being
grieved, humiliated, hurt. But there, it is folly to say such
things to you ! You are hopelessly insensible to all that. So
I take refuge in quoting your own words of this morning
against you — that no explanation is lucid if the hearer refuses
to accept it."

" I am dull, no doubt, but honestly I fail to see how that
remark of mine can be held to apply in the present case."

" It applies quite desolatingly well ! " Helen declared, with
spirit. Then her manner softened into a seductiveness of for-
giveness once again. — "And so, dear Richard, I am glad that
I had already determined to leave here to-morrow. It would
have been a little too wretched to arrive at that determination
after this conversation. You must go alone to hear your old
flame, Morabita, sing. Only, if her voice is still as sympa-
thetic as of old, if it moves you from your present insensi-
bility, you may read remembrance of some aspects of my visit
into the witchery of it if you like. It may occur to you what
those aspects really meant."

Helen smiled upon him, leaning a little forward. Her eyes
shone, as though looking out through unshed tears.

" It's not exactly flattering to one's vanity to be compelled
to depute to another woman the making of such things clear.
But it is too evident I waste my time in attempting to make
them clear myself. No explanation is lucid, et catera "

Helen shook back her head with an extraordinary charm of
half-defiant, half-tearful laughter. She was playing a game,
her whole intelligence bent on the playing of it skilfully. Yet
she was genuinely touched. She was swayed by her very real
emotion. She spoke from her heart, though every word, every
passing action, subserved her ultimate purpose in regard to
Richard Calmady.

" And, after all, one must retain some remnant of self-
respect with which to cover the nakedness of one's Oh

yes ! decidedly, Morabita's voice had best do the rest."

Richard had moved from his station in the window. He
stood at the far end of the sofa, resting his hands on the
gilde(^ and carven arm of it* Now the ungainliness of his dc-

RAKE'S PROGRESS 499

formity was hidden, and his height was greater than that of his
companion, obliging her to look up at him.

" I gave you my word, Helen," he said, " I have no
notion what you are driving at."

"Driving at, driving at?" she cried. "Why, the self-
evident truth that you are forcing me rather brutally to pay
the full price of my weakness in coming here, in permitting
myself the indulgence of seeing you again. You told me
directly I arrived, with rather cynical frankness, that I had not
changed. That is quite true. What I was at Brockhurst,
four years ago, what I then felt, that I am and that I feel still.
Oh ! you have nothing to reproach yourself with in defect of
plain speaking, or excess of amiable subterfuge ! You hit out
very straight from the shoulder ! Directly I arrived you
also told me how you had devoted this place — with which,
after all, I am not wholly unconnected — to the cult, to the
ideal worship, of a woman whom you loved."

" So I have devoted it," Richard said.

" And yet I was weak enough to remain ! "

The young man's face relaxed, but its expression remained
enigmatic.

" And why not ? " he asked.

" Because, in remaining, I have laid myself open to miscon-
struction, to all manner of pains and penalties, not easy to be
endured, to the odious certainty of appearing contemptible in
your estimation as well as in my own."

Helen patted her pretty foot upon the floor in a small frenzy
of irritation.

" How can I hope to escape, since even the precious being
whom you affect to worship you keep sternly at arm's length,
that is among the other pleasing things you confided to me
immediately on my arrival — lest, seen at close quarters, she
should fall below your requirements and so you should suffer
disillusion. Ah ! you are frightfully cold-blooded, repulsively
inhuman. Whether you judge others by yourself, reckoning
them equally devoid of natural feeling, or whether you find a
vindictive relish in rejecting the friendship and affection so
lavishly offered you

i

"Is it offered lavishly ? That comes as news to me," he
ut in.

Ah ! but it is. And I leave you to picture the pleasing

500 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

entertainment afforded the offerer in seeing you ignore the
offering, or, worse still, take it, examine it, and throw it aside
like a dirty rag ! In one case you underline your rejection
almost to the point of insult."

" This is very instructive. I am learning a whole lot about
myself," Richard said coolly.

" But look," Madame de Vallorbes cried, "do you not pre-
fer exposing yourself to the probability of serious illness
rather than remain under the same roof with me ? The in-
ference hits one in the face. To you the pestilential exha-
lations, the unspeakable abominations, of Naples harbour ap-
pear less dangerous than my near neighbourhood."

"You put it more strongly than I should," he answered,
smiling. " Yet, from a certain standpoint, that may very well
be true."

For an instant Helen hesitated. Her Intelligence, for all
its alertness, was strained exactly to appraise the value of his
words, neither over, nor under, rating it. And her eyes
searched his with a certain boldness and imperiousness of
gaze. Richard, meanwhile, folding his arms upon the carven
and gilt frame of the sofa, looked back at her, smiling still, at
once ironically and very sadly. Then swift assurance came
to her of the brazen card she had best play. But, playing It,
she was constrained to avert her eyes and set her glance pen-
sively upon the light-visited surface of her crocus-yellow,
silken lap.

" I will do my best possible to accept your nightly journeys as
a compliment in disguise, then," she said, quite softly. " For
truly, when I come to think of it, were she, herself, here —
she, the woman you so religiously admire that you take elab-
orate pains to avoid having anything on earth to do with her
— were she herself here you could hardly take more exten-
sive measures to secure yourself against risk of disappoint-
ment, hardly exercise a greater rage of caution ! "

" Perhaps that's just It. Perhaps you have arrived at it all
at last. Perhaps she is here," he said.

And he turned away, steadying himself with one hand
against the jamb of the window, and shuffled out slowly,
laboriously, onto the balcony into the night.

For a quite perceptible length of time Helen de Vallorbes
continued to contemplate the light-visited surface of her cro-

RAKE'S PROGRESS 501

cus-ycllow, silken lap. She followed the lines of the rich
pattern — pomegranate, fruit and blossom, trailing peacock's
feather. For by such mechanical employment alone could
she keep the immensity of her excitement and of her triumph
in check. To shout aloud, to dance, to run wildly to and
fro, would have been only too possible to her just then. All
that for which she had schemed, had ruled herself discreetly,
had ridden a waiting race, had been hers, in fact, from the
first — the prize adjudged before ever she left the starting-post.
She held this man in the hollow of her hand, and that by no
result of cunning artifice, but by right divine of beauty and
wit and the manifold seductions of her richly-endowed per-
sonality. And, thinking of that, she clenched her dainty fists,
opened them again, and again clenched them, upon the yield-
ing mattress of the sofa, given over to an ecstasy of physical
enjoyment, weaving even as, with clawed and padded paws,
her prototype the she-panther might. Slowly she raised her
downcast eyes and looked after Richard Calmady, his figure
a blackness, as of vacancy, against the elaborate wrought-
ironwork of the balcony. And so doing, an adorable sensa-
tion moved her, at once of hungry tenderness and of fear —
fear of something unknown, in a way fundamental, incalcu-
lable, the like of which she had never experienced before.
Ah ! indeed, of all her many loves, here was the crown and
climax ! Yet, in the midst of her very vital rapture, she
could still find time for remembrance of the little, crescent-
shaped scar upon her temple, and for remembrance of Kath-
erine Calmady, who had, unwittingly, fixed that blemish upon
her and had also more than once frustrated her designs. This
time frustration was not possible. She was about to revenge
the infliction of that little scar ! And, at the same time the
intellectual part of her was agreeably intrigued, trying to dis-
entangle the why and wherefore of Richard's late action and
utterances. While self-love was gratified to the highest
height of its ambition by the knowledge that not only in his
heart had she long reigned, but that he had dedicated time and
wealth and refined ingenuity to the idea of her, to her worship,
to the making of this, her former dwelling-place, into a temple
for her honour, a splendid witness to her victorious charm, a
shrine not unfitting to contain the idol of his imagination.
For a little space she rested in all this, savouring the sweet-

502 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ness of it as some odour of costly sacrifice. For whatever
her sins and lapses, Helen de Vallorbes had the fine aesthetic
appreciations, as well as the inevitable animality, of the great
courtesan. The artist was at least as present in her as the
whore. And it was not, therefore, until realisation of her
present felicity was complete, until it had soaked into her, so
to speak, to the extent of a delicious familiarity, that she was
disposed to seek change of posture or of place. Then, at
last, softly, languidly, for indeed she was somewhat spent by
the manifold emotions of the day, she rose and followed Rich-
ard into the starless, low-lying night. Her first words were
very simple, yet to herself charged with far-reaching meaning
— as a little key may give access to a treasure-chest contain-
ing riches of fabulous worth.

" Richard, is it really true, that which you have told me ? "

" What conceivable object could I have in lying ? "

" Then why have you delayed ? — why wasted the precious
days — the precious months and years, if it comes to that ? "

" How in honour and decency could I do otherwise — cir-
cumstances being such as they are, I being that which I am ? "

The two voices were in notable contrast. Both were low,
both were penetrated by feeling. But the man's was hoarse
and rasping, the woman's smooth and soft as milk.

" Ah ! it is the old story ! " she said. " Will you never
comprehend, Dickie, that what is to you hateful in yourself,
may to some one else be the last word of attraction, of seduc-
tion, even ? "

" God forbid I should ever comprehend that ! " he answered.
" When I take to glorying in my shame, pluming myself
upon my abnormality, then, indeed, I become beyond all ex-
ample loathsome. The most deplorable moment of my very
inglorious career will be precisely that in which I cease to
look at myself with dispassionate contempt."

Helen knelt down, resting her beautiful arms upon the dark
hand-rail of the balcony, letting her wrists droop over it into
the outer dimness. The bland light from the open window
dwelt on her kneeling figure and bowed head. But it was as;^
well, perhaps, that the night dropped a veil upon her face.

"And yet so it is," she said. "You may repudiate the
idea, but the fact remains. I do not say it would affect all
women alike — affect those, for instance, whose conception of

RAKE'S PROGRESS 503

love, and of the relation between man and woman, is depend-
ent upon the slightly improper and very tedious marriage
service as authorised by the English Church. Let the con-
ventional be conventional still ! So much the better if you
don't appeal to them — meagre, timid, inadequate, respectable
— a generation of fashion-plates with a sixpenny book of eti-
quette, moral and social, stuck inside them to serve for a
soul."

Helen's voice broke in a little spasm of laughter, and her
hands began, unconsciously, to open and close, open and close,
weaving in soft, outer darkness.

"We may leave them out of the argument. — But there re-
main the elect, Richard, among whom I dare count myself.
And over them, never doubt it, just that which you hate and
which appears at first sight to separate you so cruelly from
other men, gives you a strange empire. You stimulate, you
arrest, you satisfy one's imagination, as does the spectacle of
some great drama. You are at once enslaved and emanci-
pated by this thing — to you hateful, to me adorable — beyond
all measure of bondage or freedom inflicted upon, or enjoyed
by, other men. And in this, just this, lies magnificent com-
pensation if you would but see it. I have always known that
— known that if you would put aside your arrogance and pride,
and yield yourself a little, it was possible to love you, and give
you such joy in loving as one could give to no one else on
earth."

Her voice sweetened yet more. She leaned forward, press-
ing her bosom against the rough ironwork of the balcony.

" I knew that, from the first hour we met, in the variegated,
autumn sunshine, upon the greensward, before the white
summer-house overlooking that noble, English, woodland
view. I saw you, and so doing I saw mysteries of joy in my-
self unimagined by me before. It went very hard with me
then, Richard. It has gone very hard with me ever since."

Madame de Vallorbes' words died away in a grave and delicate
whisper. But she did not turn her head, nor did Richard speak.
Only, close there beside her, she heard him breathe, panting
short and quick even as a dog pants, while a certain vibration
seemed to run along the rough ironwork against which she
leaned. And by these signs Helen judged her speech, though
unanswered, had not been wholly in vain. From below, the

564 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

luscious fragrance of the garden, the chime of falling water,
and the urgent voice of the painted pleasure-city came up
about her. Night had veiled the face of Naples, even as
Helen's own. Yet lines of innumerable lights described the
suave curve of the bay, climbed the heights of Posilipo, were
doubled in the oily waters of the harbour, spread abroad allur-
ing gaiety in the wide piazzas, and shone like watchful and
soliciting eyes from out the darkness of narrow street, steep
lane, and cutthroat alley. While, above all that, high up-
lifted against the opacity of the starless sky, a blood-red
beacon burned on the summit of Vesuvius, the sombre glow
of it reflected upon the underside of the masses of down-
ward-rolling smoke as upon the belly of some slow-crawling,
monstrous serpent.

Suddenly Helen spoke once again, and with apparent in-
consequence.

" Richard, you must have known she could never satisfy
you — why did you try to marry Constance Quayle ? "

" To escape."

" From whom — from me ? "

" From myself, which is much the same thing as saying
from you, I suppose."

" And you could not escape ? "

" So it seems."

" But — but, dear Richard," she said plaintively, yet with
very winning sweetness, " why, after all, should you want so
desperately to escape ? "

Richard moved a little farther from her.

" I have already explained that to you, to the point of in-
sult, so you tell me," he said. " Surely it is unnecessary to go
over the ground again ? "

"You carry your idealism to the verge of slight absurdity,"
she answered. " Oh ! you of altogether too little faith, how
should you gauge the full flavour of the fruit till you have set
your teeth in it ? Better, far better, be a sacramentalist like
me and embrace the idea through the act, than refuse the act
in dread of imperiling the dominion of the idea. You put the
cart before the horse with a vengeance, Dickie ! There's
such a thing as being so reverently-minded towards your god
that he ceases to be the very least profit or use to you."

And again she heard that panting breath beside her. Again

RAKE'S PROGRESS 505

laughter bubbled up in her fair throat, and her hands fell ta
weaving the soft, outer darkness.

" You must perceive that it cannot end here and thus," she
said presently.

" Of course not," he answered. Then, after a moment's
pause, he added coldly enough : — ^' I foresaw that, so I gave
orders yesterday that the yacht was not to be laid up, but only
to coal and provision, and undergo some imperatively necessary-
repairs. She should be ready for sea by the end of the week."

Helen turned sideways, and the bland light, from the room,
within, touched her face now as well as her kneeling figure.

" And then, and then ? " she demanded, almost violently.

" Then I shall go," Richard replied. " Where, I do nor
yet know, but as far, anyhow, as the coal in the yacht's
bunkers will drive her. Distance is more important than
locality just now. And I leave you here at the villa, Helen-
Do not regret that you came. I don't."

He too had turned to the light, which revealed his face
ravaged and aged by stress of emotion, revealed too the home—
lessness, as of empty space, resident in his eyes.

" I shall be glad to remember the place pleases and speaks
to you. It has been rather a haven of rest to me during these
last two years. You would have had it at my death, in any
cajse. You have it a little sooner — that's all."

But Helen held out her arms.

" The villa, the villa," she cried, " what do I want with,
that ! God in heaven, are you utterly devoid of all sensibility^
all heart ? Or are you afraid — afraid even yet, oh, very
chicken-livered lover — that behind the beauty of Naples you
may find the filth ? It is not so, Dickie. It is not so, I tell
you. — Look at me. What would you have more ? Surely,
for any man, my love is good enough ! "

And then hurriedly, with a rustling of silken skirts, hot
with anger from head to heel, she sprang to her feet.

Across the room one of the men-servants advanced.

" The carriage is at the door, sir," he said.

And Madame de Vallorbes' voice broke in with a singular
lightness and nonchalance : —

^^ Surely it is rather imprudent to go out again to-night ?
You told me, at dinner, you were not well, that you had had
a touch of fever."

So6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

She held out her hand, smiling serenely.

" Be advised," she said — " avoid malaria. I shall see you
before I go to-morrow ? Yes — an afternoon train, I think.
Good-night, we meet at breakfast as usual."

She stepped in at the window, gathered up certain small
properties — a gold scent-bottle, one or two books, a blotting-
case, as with a view to final packing and departure. Just as
she reached the door she heard Richard say curtly : —

" Send the carriage round. I shall not want it to-night."

But even so Helen did not turn back. On the contrary,
she ran, light of foot as the little dancer, of long ago, with
blush-roses in her hat, through all the suite of rooms to her
own sea-blue, sea-green bedchamber, and there, sitting down
before the toilet-table, greeted her own radiant image in the
glass. Her lips were very red. Her eyes shone like pale
stars on a windy night.

" Quick, quick, undress me, Zelie ! Put me to bed. I am
simply expiring of fatigue," she said.

CHAPTER IX

CONCERNING THAT DAUGHTER OF CUPID AND PSYCHE WHOM
MEN CALL VOLUPTAS

' I ^HE furniture, though otherwise of the customary pro-
"^ portions, had all been dwarfedo This had been
achieved in some cases by ingenious design in its construction,
in others by the simple process of cutting down, thus reduc-
ing table and chair, couch and bureau, in itself of whatever
grace of style, dignity of age, or fineness of workmanship, to
an equality of uncomely degradation in respect of height.
The resultant effect was of false perspective. Nor was this
unpleasing effect lessened by the proportions of the room
itself. In common with all those of the entresol^ it was
noticeably low in relation to its length and width, while the
stunted vaultings of its darkly-frescoed ceiling produced an
impression of heaviness rather than of space. Bookcases,
dwarfed as were all the other furnishings, lined the walls to
within about two feet of the spring of the said vaulting.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 507

Made of red cedar and unpolished, the cornices and uprights
of them were carved with arabesques in high relief. An
antique, Persian carpet, sombre in colouring and of great
value, covered the greater portion of the pale pink and gray
mosaic pavement of the floor. Thick, rusty-red, Genoa-
velvet curtains were drawn over each low, square window.
A fire of logs burned on the open hearth. And this notwith-
standing the unaccustomed warmth of the outside air, did but
temper the chill atmosphere of the room and serve to draw a
faint aroma from the carven cedar wood.

It was here, to his library, — carried down-stairs by his men-
servants as a helpless baby-child might be, — that Richard
Calmady had come when Helen de Vallorbes departed so
blithely to her bedchamber. And it was here he remained,
though nearly two hours had elapsed since then, finding sleep
impossible.

For the wakefulness and unrest of rapidly breeding illness:
were upon him. His senses and his will had been in very
active conflict. Desire had licked him, as with fiery tongues^
driving him onward. Honour, self-contempt in face of temp-
tation to sensual indulgence, an aspiration after somewhat
stoic asceticism which had come to influence his action of
late, held him back. But now, here and alone, the immedi-
ately provoking cause of passion removed, reaction agamst the
strain of all that had very sensibly set in. He felt strangely
astray, as though drifting at hazard upon the waters of an un-
quiet, mist-blinded sea. He was conscious of a deep-seated
preoccupation regarding some matter, which he was alike un-
able to forget or to define. Formless images perplexed his
vision. Formless thoughts pursued one another, as with the
hurry of rumoured calamity, through his mind. A desolating
apprehension of things insufliciently developed, of the incon-
clusive, the immature, the unattained, of things mutilated,
things unfinished, born out of due time and incomplete, op-
pressed his fancy. Even the events of the last few hours, in
which he had played so considerable a part, took on a shadowy
semblance, ceased to appeal to him as realities, began to merge
themselves in that all-pervading apprehension of defectiveness,
of that which is wanting, lopped off, so to speak, and docked.
It was to him as though all natural, common-sense relations
were in abeyance, as though his own, usually precise, mental

5o8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

processes were divorced from reason and experience, had got
out of perspective, in short — even as this low, wide, cedar-
scented library, of which the vaulted ceiling seemed to ap-
proach unduly close to the mosaic, marble floor, and all its
dwarfed furnishings, its squat tables and almost legless chairs,
had got out of perspective.

The alternate purposeless energy and weariful weakness of
fever, just as the alternate dry flush and trembling chill of it,
distressed him. He had slipped on a smoking-coat, but even
the weight of this thin, silk garment seemed oppressive, al-
though, now and again, he felt as though around his middle
he wore a belt of ice. Not without considerable exertion he
rolled forward a couch — wide, high-backed, legless, mounted
upon little wheels — to the vicinity of the fire. He drew him-
self up on to it and rested among the piled-up cushions.
Perhaps, if he waited, exercising patience, sleep might merci-
fully visit him and deliver him from this intolerable confusion
of mind. Deliver him, too, from that hideous apprehension
of universal mutilation, of maimed purposes, maimed happen-
ings, of a world peopled by beings maimed as he was himself,
but after a more subtle and intimate fashion, a fashion intel-
lectual or moral rather than merely physical, so that they had
to him, just now, an added hatefulness of specious lying, since
to ordinary seeing they appeared whole, while whole they
truly and actually were not.

Sternly he tried to shake himself free of these morbid fan-
cies, to bring his imagination under control and force himself
once again to join hands with reality and common sense.
And, to this end, he turned his attention to the consideration
of practical matters. He dwelt on the details of the coaling
and revictualing of his yacht, upon the objective of the voyage
upon which he proposed to start a few days hence. He re-
viewed the letters which must be written and the arrangements
which must be made with a view to putting his cousin legally
in possession of the villa, the rent of which he proposed still
to pay to her husband. This suite of rooms he would re-
tain for his own use. That was necessary, obligatory. Yet,
why must he retain it ? He did not propose to return and
live here at any future time. This episode was over — or
rather, had it not simply failed of completion ? Was it not,
like all the rest, maimed, lopped off ungainly, docked ? Then,

RAKE'S PROGRESS

509

where came in the obligation to reserve these rooms ? He
could not remember. Yet he knew that he was compelled
to do so, because — because

And, once again, Richard's power of concentration bro-ke
down. Once again his thought eluded him, becoming tangled,
fugitive, not to be grasped. While, like swarms of shrill
squeaking bats disturbed in the recesses of some age-old cav-
ern by sudden intrusion of voices and of lights, half-formed
visions, half-formed ideas, once again, flapped duskily about
him, torturing in their multiplicity alike to his senses and his
brain. He fought with them, striving to beat them ofF in a
madness of disgust, half suffocated by the fanning of their
foul and stifling wings. Then, exhausted by the conflict, he
stumbled and fell, while they closed down on him. And he^
losing consciousness, slept.

That unconsciousness lasted in point of fact but for a few
minutes. Yet to Richard those minutes were as years, as
centuries. At length, still heavy with dreamless slumber, he
was aware of the stealthy turning of a key in a lock. Little
padding foot-falls, soft as those of some strong, yet dainty,
cat-creature crossed the carpet. A whisper of silk came along
with them, like the murmur of the breeze in an oak grove on
a clear, hot, summer noon, or the sibilant ripple of the sea
upon spaces of fine-ribbed, yellow sand. And the impression
produced upon Richard was delicious, as of one passing from
a close room into the open air. Confusion and exhaustion
left him. Energy returned. The energy of breeding fever
merely, yet to him it appeared that of refreshment, of re-
newed and abounding health. He was conscious, too, of a
will outside himself, acting upon his will — a will self-secure,
impregnable, working with triumphant daring towards a single
end. It certainly was unmaimed — in its present manifestation
in any case. It told, and with assurance, of completion, of
attainment. Yielding himself to it, with something of the
recklessness a man yields himself to the poison which yet
promises relief, Richard opened his eyes.

Before him stood Helen de Vallorbcs. In one hand she
carried a little lamp. Her shining hair curled low upon her
forehead, half concealed her pretty ears, and lay upon her
shoulders like a little, golden cape. And, from out this bright^
ness of her hair, the exultant laughter bubbling in her throaty

5IO SIR RICHARD CALMADY

the small lamp carried high in one hand, she looked down at
Richard Calmady.

Not till the gray of a rain-washed, windy morning had
come, and Naples had put off its merry sinning, changing
from a city of pleasure to a city of labour and, too often, of
callously inflicted pain, did Helen de Vail orbes leave the cedar-
scented library. The fire of logs had burnt itself out upon
the hearth, and other fires, perhaps, had pretty thoroughly
burnt themselves out likewise. Then, with the extinguished
lamp in one hand and her high-heeled, cloth-of-gold slippers
in the other, she had run swiftly, barefoot, up the cold, mar-
ble stairs, through the suite of lofty rooms, her image, in the
bleak dimness of the wet morning, giving back by their tall
mirrors as that of no mortal woman but some fear-driven,
hurrying ghost. Carefully closing the door of the bedcham-
ber behind her, she threw her dressing-gown aside and buried
herself in the luxurious softness of the unslept-in bed. And
she was only just in time. Servants began to move to and
fro. The house was awake.

RAKE*S PROGRESS 511

CHAPTER X

THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION

CULLENLY, persistently, the rain came down. In the
^ harbour the wash was just sufficient to make the raveled
fruit-baskets, the shredded vegetables, the crusts and ofFal
thrown out from the galleys, heave and sway upon the oily
surface of the water, while screaming gulls dropped greedily
upon the floating refuse, and rising, circled over the blacky
liquid lanes and open spaces between the hulls of the many
ships. But it was insufficient to lift the yacht, tied up to the
southern quay of the Porto Grande. She lay there inert and
in somewhat sorry plight under the steady downpour. For
the moment all the winsome devilry of a smart, sea-going
craft was dead in her, and she sulked, ashamed through all her
eight hundred tons of wood and iron, copper, brass, and steel.
For she was coaling, over-deck, and was grimy from stem to
stern. While, arrayed in the cast clothes of all Europe, tat-
tered, undersized, gesticulating, the human scum of Naples
swarmed up the steep, narrow planks from the inky lighters
and in over her side.

" Beastly dirty job this. Shan't get her paint clean under a
week ! " the first mate grumbled to his companion, the second
mate — a dark-haired, dreamy-eyed. West-country lad, but just
out of his teens.

The two officers, in dripping oilskins, stood at the gangway
checking the tally of coal-baskets as they came on board.
Just now there was a pause in the black procession, as an
empty lighter sheered off, making room for a full one to come
alongside, thus rendering conversation momentarily possible.

" Pity the boss couldn't have stayed on shore till we were
through with it and cleaned up a bit," the speaker continued.
" Makes the old man no end waxy to have any one on board
when the yacht's like she is. I don't blame him. She's as
neat and pretty as a white daisy in a green pasture when she's
away to sea. And now, poor little soul, she's a regular slut."

512 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" I know Pd 'ave stayed ashore fast enough if I was the
boss/' the boy said, half wistfully. " That villa of his is
like a piece of poetry. I keep on saying over to myself how
it looks.''

" Oh ! it's not so bad for foreign parts," the senior officer
replied. " And you're young yet and soft, Penberthy. You'll
come of that presently. England's best for houses, town and
country, and most other things — women, and fights, and even
sunshine, for when you do get sunshine at home there's no
spite in it. — Hi ! there you ganger," he shouted suddenly, and
resentfully, leaning out over the bulwarks, " hurry 'em up a
bit, can't you ? You don't suppose I mean to stand here till
the second anniversary of the Day of Judgment, watching
your blithering, chicken-shanked macaronies suck rotten
oranges, do you ? Start 'em up again. Whatever are you
waiting for, man ? Start 'em up, I say."

The boy's dreamy eyes, full of unwritten verse, dwelt with
a curious indifference upon the broken procession of ascend-
ing, black figures. He had but lately joined, and to him both
the fine vessel and her owner were invested with a certain
romance.

" What was the fancy for calling the yacht the Reprieve ? '*
he asked presently.

" Wait till you've had the chance to take a good look at
Sir Richard, and you'll answer your question yourself," the
other man answered oracularly. Then he broke out again
into sustained invective : — " Hold up there, you little fool of
a tight-rope dancing, hella Napoli gorilla, and don't go drop-
ping good, honest, Welsh steam-coal overboard into your con-
founded, stinking local sewer ! I don't care to see any of
your blamed posturings, don't flatter yourself. Hold up you
grimacing, great grandson of a lousy she-ape, can't you, and
walk straight. — Take him all round Sir Richard Calmady's
the best boss I ever sailed with — one of the sternest, but the
•civilest too. — Shove 'em along, ganger, will you. Shove 'em
along, I say. — He's one of the few men I've loved, I'm not
ashamed to say it, Mr. Penberthy, and about the only one I
ever remember to have feared, in my life."

Meanwhile, if the scene to seaward was cheerless, that to
landward offered but small improvement. For the murk of
low-brooding cloud and falling rain blotted out the Castcl S*

RAKE'S PROGRESS

513

Elmo, and the Capo di Monte and Pizzafalcone heights.
Even the Castello derOvo down on the shore line, compara-
tively near at hand, loomed up but a denser mass of indigo-
gray amid the all obtaining grayness. The tail multi-col-
oured, many-shuttered houses fronting the quays — restaurants,
cafes^ money-changers' bureaux, ships' chandlers, and slop-
shops— looked tawdry and degraded as a clown's painted face
seen by daylight. Thick, malodorous vapours arose from the
squalid streets, lying back on the level, and from the crowded
shipping of the port. These hung in the stagnant air, about
the forest of masts and the funnels of steamers. And the
noise of the place was as that of Bedlam let loose. — The
long-drawn, chattering rush of the coal pitched from the
baskets down the echoing, iron shoots. The grate and scream
of saws cutting through blocks of stone and marble. The
grind of heavy wheels upon the broken, irregular flags. The
struggling clatter of hoofs, lashing of whips, squeal of mules,
savage voices raised in cries and imprecations. The clank
and roar of machinery. The repeated bellowing of a great
liner, blowing ofF steam as she took up her berth in the outer
harbour. The shattering rattle of the chains of a steam
crane, when the monster iron-arm swung round seeking or
depositing its burden and the crank ran out in harsh anger, as
it seemed, and defiance. And through all this, as under-cur-
rent, the confused clamour of the ever-shifting, ever-present
crowd, and the small, steady drip of the rain. Squalid, sor-
did, brutal even, the coarse actualities of her trade and her
poverty alike disclosed, her fictions and her foulness uncon-
doned by reconciling sunshine, Naples had declined from
radiant goddess to common drab.

It v/as in this character that Richard Calmady, driving
yesterday, and for the first time, through the streets at noon,
had been fated to see his so fondly-idealised city. It was in
this character that he apprehended it again to-day, waiting in.
his deck-cabin until cessation of the rain and on-coming of
the friendly dusk should render it not wholly odious to sit out
on deck. The hours lagged, and even this bright and usually
spotless apartment — v/ith its shining, white vi^alls, its dark,
blue leather and polished, mahogany fittings— the coal dust
penetrated. It rimmed the edge of the books neatly ranged
on the racks. It smirched the charts laid out on the square

514 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

locker-table below. It drifted In at the cabin windows, along
with the babel of sound and the all-pervading stench of the
port. This was, in itself, sufficiently distasteful, sufficiently
depressing. And to Richard, just now, the disgust of it came
with the heightened sensibility of physical illness, and as ac-
companiment to an immense private shame and immense self-
condemnation, a conviction of outlawry and a desolation pass-
ing speech. He looked for comfort, for promise of restora-
tion, and found none, in things material or things intellectual,
in others or in himself. For his mind, always prone to ap-
prehend by images rather than by words, and to advance by
analogy rather than by argument, discovered, in surrounding
aspects and surrounding circumstance, a rather hideously apt
parable and illustration of its present state. Just as this seem-
ingly fair city was proven, on intimate acquaintance, repulsive
beyond the worst he had ever feared and earnestly refused to
know of it, so a certain fair woman, upon whom, since boy-
hood, his best, most chivalrous, most unselfish, affections had
centred, was proven — herself, moreover, flagrantly contribu-
ting to that proving — vile beyond all that rumor, heard and
passionately denied by him, had ever ventured to whisper con-
cerning her. Nor was the misery of this revelation lessened
by the knowledge that his own part in it all had been very
base. He had sinned before. He would sin again probably.
Richard had long ceased to regard these matters from a strictly
puritanic standpoint. But this particular sinning was different
to any that had gone before, or which could come after it.
For it partook — so at least, it nov/ appeared to him — of the
nature of sacrilege, since he had sinned against his ideal, de-
grading that to gross uses which he had agreed with himself
to hold sacred, defiling it and, thereby, very horribly defiling
himself.

And this disgrace of their relation, his own and hers, the
inherent abomination of it all and its inherent falsity, had been
forced home on him with a certain violence of directness just
in the common course of daily liappenings. For among the
letters, brought to him along with his first breakfast, yester-
day, after that night of secret licence, had been three of
serious import. One w^as from Lady Calmady, and that he
put aside with a certain anger, calling himself unwilling,
knowing himself unfit, to read it. Another he tore open.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 515

The handwriting was unknown to him. He began reading it
in bewilderment. Then he understood.

" Monsieur," — it ran, — " You are in process of extermi-
nating me. But, since I have reason to believe that no suffi-
cient opportunity has been afforded you of realising the enor-
mity of your conduct, I rally the profoundness of nobility
which I discover within me — I calm myself. I go further, I
explain. Living in retirement, you may not have learned that
I am in Naples. I followed your cousin here — Madame de
Vallorbes. My connection with her represents the supreme
passion of my passionate youth. At once a frenzy and an
anodyne, I have found in it the inspiration of my genius in its
later development. This work must not be put a stop to. It
is too majestic, it is weighted with too serious consequences
to the whole of thinking France, of thinking Europe. A less
experienced woman cannot satisfy the extravagance of my de-
sires, the demands of my all-consuming imagination. The
reverence with which a person, such as yourself, must regard
commanding talent, the concessions he must be willing to
make to its necessities, are without limit. This I cannot
doubt that you will admit. The corollary is obvious. Either,
monsieur^ you will immediately invite me to reside with you at
your villa — thereby securing for yourself daily intercourse with
a nature of distinguished merit — or you will restore Madame
de Vallorbes to me without hesitation or delay. Her devotion
to me is absolute. How could it fail to be so, since I have
lavished upon her the treasures of my extraordinary person-
ality ? But a fear of insular prejudice on your part withholds
her at this moment from full expression of that devotion.
She suffers as well as myself. It will be your privilege to put
a term to this suffering by requesting me to join her, or by
restoring her to me. To do otherwise will be to prolong the
eclipse of my genius, and thereby outrage the conscience of
civilised humanity which breathlessly awaits the next utter-
ance of its chosen poet. If you require the consolation of
feminine society, marry — it would be very simple — some
white-souled, English miss. But restore to me, to whom her
presence is indispensable, this woman of regal passions. I
shall present myself at your house to-day to receive your
answer in person. The result of a refusal on your part to

5i6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

receive me will be attended by calamitous consequences to
yourself. — Accept, monsieur^ the expression of my highest con-
sideration,

" Paul Auguste Destournelle."

For the moment Richard saw red, mad with rage at the
insolence of the writer. And then came the question, was it
true, this which the letter implied ? Had Helen, indeed, lied
to him ? And, notwithstanding its insane vanity, did this
precious epistle give a more veracious account of her relation
to the young poet than that which she had herself volunteered ?
He tried to put the thought from him. Who was he — to-day
of all days — to be nice about the conduct of another? Who
was he to sit in judgment? So he turned to his correspond-
ence again, taking another letter, at random, from the pile.
And then, looking at the superscription, he turned somewhat
sick.

" MoN CHER,'* — wrote M. de Vallorbes, — " IVIy steward
informs me that he has just received your draft for a quarter's
rent of the villa. I thank you a thousand times for your
admirable punctuality. Decidedly you are of those with whom
it is a consolation to do business. Need I assure you that the
advent of this money is far from inopportune, since a grateful
country, while showering distinctions upon me with one hand,
with the other picks my pocket. I find it not a little expen-
sive this famous military service ! But then, ever since I can
remember, I have found all that afforded me the slightest,
active pleasure equally that ! And this sport of war, I prom-
ise you, is the most excellent sport in which I have as yet
participated. It satisfies the primitive instincts more thor-
oughly than even your English fox-hunting. A battue of
Communards is obviously superior to a battue of pheasants.
To the dignity of killing one's fellow-men is added the satis-
faction of ridding oneself of vermin. It becomes a matter
of sanitation and self-respect. And this, indirectly, recalls
to me, that report declares my wife to be with you at Naples.
Alon cher je vous en fats cadeau. With you, at least, I know
that my honour is safe. You may even instil into her mind
some faint conception of the rudiments of morality. To be
frank with you, she needs that. A couple of months ago she

RAKE'S PROGRESS

517

did me the honour to elope — temporarily, of course — with M.
Paul Destournelle, You may have glanced, one day, at his
crapulous verses. I suppose honour demanded that I should
pursue the guilty pair and account for one, if not both, of
them. But I was too busily engaged with my little Com^
munards. We set these gentry up against a wall and dispose
of them in batches. I have had a good deal of this, but, as I
say, it has not yet become monotonous. Traits of individual
character lend it vivacity. And then, putting aside the exi-
gencies of my profession, I do not know that anything is to
be gained by inviting public scandal. You have an English
proverb to the effect that one should wash one's dirty linen at
home. This I have tried to do, as you cannot but be aw^are,
all along. If one has had the misfortune to marry Messalina^
one learns to be philosophic. A few lovers more or less, in
that connection, what, after all, does it matter ? Indeed, I
begin to derive ironical consolation from the fact of their
multiplicity. The existence of one would have constituted
a reflection upon my charms. But a matter of ten, fifteen,
twenty, ceases to be in any degree personal to myself. Only
I object to Destournelle. He is too young, too rococco. He
represents a descent in the scale. I prefer des homines mureSy
generals, ministers, princes. The devil knows we have had
our share of such ! Your generosity to her has saved us from
Jews so far, and from nouveaux riches^ by relieving the busi-
ness of commercial aspects. Give her some salutary advice,
therefore, mon cher^ and if she becomes inconvenient forward
her to Paris. I forgive to seventy-times-seven, being still
proud enough to struggle after an appearance of social and
conjugal decency. Enfin it is a relief to have unburdened
myself for once, and you have been the good genius of my
unfortunsite menage^ for which heaven reward you. — Yours, in
true cousinly regard and supreme reliance on your discretion,
" LuiGi Angelo Francesco de Vallorbes."

That this, in any case, had a stamp of sincerity upon it,
Richard could not doubt. It must be admitted that he had
long ceased to accept Madame de Vallorbes' estimate of her
husband with unqualified belief. But, be that as it might,
whether he were a consummate, or merely an average, profli-
gate, one thing was certain that this man trusted him — '

5i8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Richard Calmady, — and that he — Richard Cahnady — had very
vilely betrayed that trust. He stared at the letter, and certain
sentences in it seemed to sear him, even as the branding-iron
used on a felon might. This was a new shame, different to,
and greater than, any his deformity had ever induced in him,
even as evil done is different to, and greater than, evil suffered.
Morality may be relative only and conventional. Honour,
for all persons of a certain standing and breeding, remains
absolute. And it was precisely of his own honour that he had
deprived himself. Not only in body, but in character, he was
henceforth monstrous. For a while Richard had remained
very still, looking at this thing into which he had made him-
self as though it were external and physically visible to him.

Then, suddenly, he had reached out his hand for his mother's
letter. A decision of great moment was impending. He would
know what she had to say before finally making that decision.
He wondered bitterly, grimly, whether her words would plunge
him yet deeper in this abyss of self-hatred and self-contempt.

"My Darling," — she wrote, — "I am foolishly glad to
learn that you are back at Naples. It gives me comfort to
know you are even thus much nearer home and in a country
where I too have traveled and of which I retain many dear
and delightful recollections. You may be surprised, perhaps,
to see the unaccustomed address upon my note-paper and may
wonder what has made me guilty of deserting my post. Now,
since the worst of it is certainly over, I may tell you that my
health has failed a good deal of late. Nothing of a really seri-
ous nature — you need not be alarmed about me. But I had got
into a rather weak and unworthy state, from which it became
very desirable I should rouse myself. Selfishness is insidious,
but none the less reprehensible because it takes the apparently
innocent form of sitting in a chair with one's eyes shut !
However, that best of men, John Knott, brought very bracing
influences to bear on me, convincing me of sin — in the gentlest
way in the world — by means of Honoria St. Quentin. And
so I picked myself up, dear Dickie, — picked the whole of my-
self up, as I hope, always saving and excepting my self-indul-
gent inertia, — and came away here to Ormiston. At first, I
confess, I felt very much like a dog at a fair, or the proverbial
mummy at a feast. But they all bore with me in the plenty

RAKE'S PROGRESS 519

of their kindness, and, in the last week, I have banished the
mummy and trained the scared dog to altogether polite and
pretty behaviour. Till I came back to it, I hardly realised
how truly I loved this place. How should it be otherwise ?
I met your father first here after his third term at Eton. I
remember he snubbed me roundly. I met him again the year
before our marriage. Without vanity I declare that then he
snubbed me not one little bit. These things are very far
away. But to mc, though far away, they are very vivid and
very lovely. I see them as you, when you were small, so
often pleaded to see a fairy landscape by looking through the
large end of the gold and tortoise-shell spy-glass upon my writ-
ing-table. All of which may seem to you somewhat childish
and trivial, but I grow an old woman and have a fancy for
toys and tender make-believes — such as fairy landscapes seen
through the big end of a spy-glass. The actual landscape, at
times, is a trifle discouragingly rain-washed and cloudy ! —
Roger and Mary are here. Their two boys are just gone
back to school again. They are fine, courteous, fearless, little
fellows. Roger makes a rather superb middle-aged man. He
has much of my father — your grandfather's reticence and
dignity. Indeed, he might prove slightly alarming, was one
not so perfectly sure of him, dear creature. Mary remains,
as of old, the most wholesome and helpful of women. Yes,
it is good to dwell, for a time, among one's own people. And
I cannot but rejoice that my eldest brother has come to an
arrangement by which, at his death, your Uncle William will
receive a considerable sum of money in lieu of the property.
This last will go direct to Roger, and eventually to his boys.
If your Uncle William had a son, the whole matter would be
different. But I own it would hurt me that in the event of
his death there would be no Ormiston at Ormiston after these
many generations. In all probability the place would be sold
immediately, moreover, for it is an open secret that, through
no fault of his own, poor man, William is sadly embarrassed
in money matters. And he has other sorrows — of a rather
terrible nature, since they are touched with disgrace. But here
you will probably detect a point of prejudice, so I had better ^
stop ! — I look out upon a gray, northern sea, where ^the white
horses fume and fret' under a cold, gray, northern sky. The
oaks in the park are just thickening with yellow-green buds.^

520 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

And there, close to my window, perched on a topmost twig,
a missel-thrush is singing, facing the wind like a gentleman.
You look out upon a purple sea, I suppose, beneath clear
skies and over orange trees and palms. I wonder if any brav^e
bird pipes to you as my storm-cock to me ? It brings up
one's courage to hear his song, so strong and wild and sweet,
in the very teeth of the gale too ! But now you will )iave
had enough of my nevfc^s and more than enough. I write to
you more freely, you see, than for a iong time past, being
myself more free of spirit. And therefore I dare add this, in
all and every case, my darling, God keep you. And remem-
ber, should you weary of wandering, that not only the doors
of Biockhurst, but the doors of my heart, stand forever wide
open to welcome you home. — Yours always, K. C."

Reading which gentle, yet in a sense daring, words, Richard's
shame took on another complexion, but one by no means
calculated to mitigate the burning of it. His treachery towards
de Vallorbes became almost vulgar and of small moment beside
his cruelty to this superbly magnanimous woman, his mother.
For, all these years, determinately and of set purpose, dejfiant
of every better impulse, he had hardened his heart against her.
To differ from her, to cherish that which was unsympathetic
to her, to put aside every tradition in which she had nurtured
him, to love that which she condemned, to condemn that which
she loved — and this, if silently, yet unswervingly — had been
the ruling purpose of his action. That which had its origin in
passionate revolt against his own unhappy disfigurement, had
come to be an interest and object in itself. In this quarrel with
her — a quarrel, intimate, pre-natal, anterior to consciousness
and to volition — he found the justification of his every lapse,
his every crookedness of conduct and of thought. Since he
could not reach Almighty God, and strike at the eternal First
Cause which he held responsible for the inalienable wrong done
to him, he would strike, w^th cold-blooded persistence, at the
woman whom Almighty God had permitted to be His instru-
ment in the infliction of that wrong. And to where had that
sustained purpose of striking led him ? Even — so he judged
just now — to the dishonour and desolation of to-day, following
upon the sacrilegious licence of last night.

All this Richard saw with the alternately groping, benumbed.

RAKE'S PROGRESS 521

mental vision and the glaring, mental nakedness of breeding
fever. Small wonder that looking for comfort, for promise of
restoration, he found none in things material, in things intel-
lectual, in others, or in himself! He felt outcasted beyond
hope of redemption, but not repentant, hardly remorseful even,
only aware of all that which had happened, and of his own
state. For Lady Calmady's letter was to him little more, as
yet, than a placing of facts. To trade upon her magnificent
generosity of affection, and seek refuge in those outstretched
arms now, with the mark of the branding-iron so sensibly
upon him, appeared to him of all contemptible doings the most
radically contemptible. Obviously it was impossible to go
back. He must go on rather — out of sight, out of mind.
Fantastic schemes of disappearing, of losing himself, far away,
in remote and nameless places, among the coral islands of the
Pacific or the chill majesty of the Antarctic seas, offered
themselves to his imagination. The practical difficulties pre-
sented by such schemes, their infeasibility, did not trouble him.
He would sever all connection with that which had been, with
that which had made for good equally with that which had
niade for evil. By his own voluntary act and choice he would
become as a man dead, the disgrace of his malformed body,
the closer and more hideous disgrace of his defiled and pros-
tituted soul, surviving in legend merely, as might some ugly,
old-time fable useful for the frightening of unruly babies.

And to that end of self-obliteration he instantly applied him-
self, with outward calm, but with the mental hurry and rest-
lessness of increasing illness. His first duty was to end the
whole matter of his relation to Helen, — Helen shorn of her
divinity, convicted liar and wanton, yet mistress still for him,
as he feared, of mighty enchantments. So he wrote to her
very briefly. The note should be given her later in the day.
In it he stated that he should have left the villa before this
announcement reached her, left it finally and without remotest
prospect of return, since he could not doubt that she recog-
nised, as he did, how impossible it had become that he and she
should meet again. He added that he would communicate
with her shortly as to business arrangements. That done, he
summoned Powell, his valet, bidding him pack, He would go
down to the yacht at once. He had received information which
^inade it imperative that he should quit Naples immediately.

522 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

To be out of all this, rid of it, fairly started on the road of
negation of social being, negation of recognised existence, in-
fected him like a madness. But even the most forceful human
will must bend to stupidities of detail and of material fact.
Unexpected delays had occurred. The yacht was not ready
for sea, neither coaled, nor provisioned, nor sound of certain
small damages to her machinery. Vanstone, the captain^
might mislay his temper, and the first mate expend himself
in polysyllabic invective, young Penberthy cease to dream,
stewards, engineers, carpenters, cooks, quartermasters, seamen,
firemen, do their most willing and urgent best, nevertheless
the morning of next day, and even the 'afternoon of it, still
found Richard Calmady seated at the locker-table of the
white-walled deck-cabin, his voyage towards self-obliteration
not yet begun.

Charts were outspread before him, upon which, at weary
intervals, he essayed to trace the course of his coming wander-
ings. But his brain was dull, he had no power of consecutive
thought. That same madness of going was upon him with
undiminished power, yet he knew not vi^here he wanted to go,
hardly why he wanted to go, only that a blind obsession of
going drove him. He was miserably troubled about other
matters too — about that same brief letter he had written to
Helen before leaving the villa. He was convinced that he had
written such a letter, but struggle as he might to remember
the contents of it they remained to him a blank. He was
haunted by the fear that in that letter he had committed
some irremediable folly, had bound himself to some absurdly
unworthy course of action. But what it might be escaped
and, in escaping, tortured him. And then, this surely was
Friday, and Morabita sang at the San Carlo to-night ? And
surely he had promised to be there, and to meet the famous
prima donna and sup with her after the performance, as in
former days at Vienna ? He had not always been quite kind
to her, poor, dear, fat, good-natured, silly soul ! He could
not fail her now. — And then he went back to a chart of the
South Pacific again. Only he could not see it plainly, but
saw, instead of it, the great folio of copper-plate engravings
Iving on the broad window-seat of the eastern bay of the
Long Gallery at home. He was sitting there to watch for
the race-horses coming back from exercise, Tom Chifney

RAKE'S PROGRESS 523

pricking along beside them on his handsome cob. And the
long-ago, boyish desperation of longing for wholeness, for
freedom, brought a moistness to his eyes, and a lump into his
throat. And all the while the coal dust drifted in at each
smallest crevice and aperture, and the air was vibrant with
rasping, jarring uproar and nauseous with the stale, heavy
odours of the city and the port. And steadily, ceaselessly,
the descending rain drummed upon the roofing overhead.

At length a stupor took him. His head sunk upon his
arms, folded upon those outspread charts, while the noise of
all the rude activities surrounding him subtly transformed itself
into that of a great orchestra. And above this, superior to,
yet nobly supported by it, Morabita's voice rose in the suave
and passionate phrases of the glorious cavatina — ^^Ernani^
Ernani^ involami^ all ahorito amplesoJ^ — Yes, her voice was as
good as ever ! Richard drew a long breath of relief. Here,
at least, was something true to itself, and amid so much of
change, so much of spoiling, still unspoilt ! He raised his
head and listened. For something must have happened, some-
thing of serious moment. The orchestra, for some unaccount-
able reason, had suddenly broken down. Yes, it must be the
orchestra which disaster had overtaken, for a voice very cer-
tainly continued. No, not a voice, but voices — those of
Vanstone the captain, and Price the first mate, and old Billy
Tinn the boatswain — loud, imperative, violently remonstrant,
but swept under and swamped at moments by cries and volleys
of foulest, Neapolitan argot from hoarse, Neapolitan throats.
And that abruptly silenced orchestra ? — Richard came back
to himself, came back to actualities of environment and
prosaic fact. An infinitely weariful despair seized him. For
the sound that had reached so sudden a termination was not
that of cunningly-attuned, musical instruments, but the long-
drawn, chattering rush of the coal, p'.tched from the baskets
down the echoing, iron shoots.

The cabin door opened discreetly and Powell, incarnation
of decorous punctualities even amid existing tumultuously
discomposing circumstances, entered.

" From the villa, sir," he said, depositing letters and news-
papers upon the table.

Richard put out his hand, turned them over mechanically.
For again, somehow, notwithstanding the babel without, that

524 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

exquisite invitation — " Ernani^ Ernani^lnvolami^^ — assailed his
ears.

The valet waited a little, quiet and deferential in bearing,
yet observing his master with a certain keenness and anxiety.

" I saw Mr. Bates, as you desired, sir,'' he said at last.

Richard looked up at him vaguely. And it struck him that
while Powell was on shore to-day he had undoubtedly had his
hair cut. This interested him — though why, he would have
found it difficult to say.

" Mr. Bates thought you should be informed that a gentleman
called early yesterday afternoon, as he said by appointment."

Yes — certainly Powell had had his hair cut. — " Did the
gentleman give his name ? "

"Yes, sir, M. Paul Destournelle."

Powell spoke slowly, getting his tongue carefully round the
foreign syllables, and, for all the confusion of his hearer's
mind, the name went home. Vagueness passed from Rich-
ard's glance.

" He was refused, of course."

" Her ladyship had given orders that should any person of
that name call he was to be admitted." — Powell spoke with
evident reluctance. '' Consequently Mr. Bates was uncertain
how to act, having received contrary orders from you, sir, the
day before yesterday. He explained this to her ladyship, but
she insisted."

Richard's mind had become perfectly lucid.

"Very well," he said coldly.

" Mr. Bates also thought you should know, sir, that after
M. De^tournelle's visit her ladyship announced she should not
remain at the villa. She left about five o'clock, taking her
maid. Charles followed with all the baggage."

The valet paused. Richard's manner was decidedly dis-
couraging, yet, something further must at least be intimated.

" Her ladyship gave no address to Mr. Bates for the for-
warding of her letters."

But here the cabin door, left slightly ajar by Powell, was
opened wide, and that with none of the calm and discretion
displayed by the functionary in question. A long perspective
of grimy deck behind him, his oilskins shiny from tlie wet,
with trim, black beard, square-made, bold-eyed, hot-tempered,
warm-hearted, alert, humorous — typical West Countryman as

RAKE'S PROGRESS 525

his gentle dreamy cousin, Pcnberthy, the second mate, though
of a very different type — stood Captain Vanstone. His
easily-rufHed temper suffered from the after effects of what is
commonly known as a ^' jolly row," and his speech was curt
in consequence thereof.

" Sorry to disturb you, Sir Richard," he said, " and still
more sorry to disappoint you, but it can't be helped."

Dickie turned upon him so strangely drawn and haggard a
countenance, that Vanstone with difficulty repressed an excla-
mation. He looked in quick inquiry at the valet, who so far
departed from his usual decorum as to nod his head in assent
to the silent questioning.

"What's wrong now ? " Richard said.

" Why, these beggarly rascals have knocked off. Price
offered them a higher scale of pay. I had empowered him to
do so. But they won't budge. The rain's washed the heart
out of them. We've tried persuasion and we've tried threats
— it's no earthly use. Not a basket more coal will they put
on board before five to-morrow morning."

" Can't we sail with what we have got ? "

'' Not enough to carry us to Port Said."

" What will be the extent of the delav this time ? " Richard
asked. His tone had an edge to it.

Again Captain Vanstone glanced at the valet.

"With luck we may get off to-morrow about midnight."

He stepped back, shook himself like a big dog, scattering
the water off his oilskins in a shower upon the slippery deck.
Then he came inside the cabin and stood near Richard. His
expression was very kindly, tender almost.

" You must excuse me, sir," he said. " I know it doesn't
come within my province to give you advice. But you do
look pretty ill. Sir Richard. Every one's remarking that. And
you are ill, sir — you know it, and I know It, and Mr. Powell
here knows it. You ought to see a doctor, sir — and if you'll
pardon plain language, this beastly cess-pit of a harbour is not
a fit place for you to sleep in."

And poor JDickie, after an instant of sharp annoyance,
touched by the man's honest humanity smiled upon hxm — a
smile of utter weariness, utter homelessness.

" Perfectly true. Get me out to sea then, Vanstone, I
shall be better there than anywhere else," he said.

526 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Whereupon the kindly sailor-man turned away, swearing
gently into his trim, black beard.

But the valet remained, impassive in manner, actively anx-
ious at heart.

" Have you any orders for the carriage, sir ? " he asked.
" Garcia drove me down. I told him to wait until I had in-
quired."

Richard was long in replying. His brain was all confused
and clouded again, while again he heard the voice of the
famous soprano — " Ernani^ Ernan't^ involami,^'*

"Yes," he said at last. "Tell Garcia to be here in good
time to drive me to the San Carlo. I have an appointment at
the opera to-night."

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH DICKIE GOES TO THE END OF THE WORLD AND
LOOKS OVER THE WALL

' I ^HE opera box, which Richard Calmady had rented along
•^ with the Villa Vallorbes, was fifth from the stage on
the third tier, to the right of the vast horseshoe. Thus situ-
ated, it commanded a very comprehensive view of the interior
of the house. The parterre — its somewhat comfortless seats,
rising as on iron stilts, as they recede, row by row, from the
proscenium — was packed. While, since the aristocratic world
had not yet left town, the boxes — piled, tier above tier, with-
out break of dress-circle or gallery, right up to the lofty roof —
were well-filled. And it was the effect of these last that
affected Richard oddly, displeasingly, as, helped by Powell and
Andrews, — the first footman, who acted as his table-steward
on board the Reprieve^ — he made his v/ay slowly down to the
chair, placed on the left, at the front of the box. For the
accepted aspects and relations of things seen were remote to
him. He perceived effects, shapes, associations of colour,
divorced from their habitual significance. It was as though
he looked at the written characters of a language unknown to
him, observing the form of them, but attaching no intelligible
meaning to that form. And so it happened that those many

MKE'S PROGRESS ^if

superimposed tiers of boxes were to him as the waxen cells
■of a gigantic honeycomb, against the angular darknesses of
which little figures, seen to the waist, took the light — the
blond face, neck and arms of some woman, the fair colourg
of her dress — and showed up with perplexing insistence. For
they were all peopled, these cells of the honeycomb, and — so
it seemed to him — with larvae, bright-hued, unworking, indo*
lent, full-fed. Down there upon the parterre^ in the close-
packed ranks of students, of men and women of the middle-
class, soberly attired in walking costume, he recognised the
working bees of this giant hive. By their unremitting labour
the dainty waxen cells were actually built up, and those larvae
were so amply, so luxuriously, fed. And the working bees — -
there were so many, so very many of them ! What if they
became mutinous, rebelled against labour, plundered and des-
troyed the indolent, succulent larvae of which he — yes, he,
Richard Calmady — was unquestionably and conspicuously one ?
He leaned back in his chair, pulled forward the velvet
drapery so as to shut out the view of the house, and fixed his
«yes upon the heads of the musicians in the orchestra. The
overture was nearly over. The curtain would very soon go
up. Then he observed that Powell still stood near him. The
man was strangely officious to-day, he thought. Could that
be connected in any way with the fact he had had his hair
cut ? For a moment the notion appeared to Dickie quite ex-
travagantly amusing. But he kept his amusement, as so much
else, to himself. And again the working bees, down in the
parterre^ attracted his attention. They were buzzing, buzz-
ing angrily, displeased with the full-fed larvae in the boxes,
because these last were altogether too social, talked too loud
and too continuously, drowning the softer passages of the
overture. Those dull-coloured insects had expended store o\
hard-earned lire upon the queer seats they occupied, mounted
as upon iron stilts. They meant to have the whole of that
which they had paid for, and hear every note. If they
swarmed, now, swarmed upward, clung along the edges of
those many tiers of boxes, punished inconsiderate insolence
with stings ? — It would hardly be unjust. — But there was
Pov/ell still, clad in sober garm.ents. He belonged to the
workintr bees. And Richard became aware of a sine.iilar
diffidence and embarrassment m thinking of that. If tiiey

528 SIR RICHARL CAlMADY

should swarm, those workers, he would rather the valet did
not see it, somehow. He was a good fellow, a faithful serv-
ant, a man of nice feeling, and such an incident would place
him in an awkward position. He ought to be spared that.
Carefully Dickie reasoned it all out.

" You need not stay here any longer, Powell," he said.

" When shall I return, sir ? "

The curtain went up. A roll of drums, a chorus of men's
voices, somewhat truculent, in the drinking song.

^' At the end of the performance, of course."

But the valet hesitated.

'' You might require to send some message, sir."

Richard stared at the chorus. The opera being performed
but this once, economy prevailed. Costumiers had ransacked
their stock for discovery of garments not unpardonably inap-
propriate. The result showed a line superiority to details of
time and place. One Spanish bandit, a portly basso^ figured in
a surprising variety of Highland dress designed, and that
locally, for a chieftain in the opera of Lucia di Lammermoor.
His acquaintance with the eccentricities of a kilt being of the
slightest, consequences ensued broadly humorous. — Again
Dickie experienced great amusement. But that message ? —
Had he really one to send ? Probably he had. He could not
remember, and this annoyed him. Possibly he might remem-
ber later. He turned to Powell, forgetting his amusement,
forgetting the too intimate personal revelations of the unhappy
basso,

"Yes — well — come back at the end of the second act,
then," he said.

If the bees swarmed it would be over by that time, he sup-
posed, so Powell's return would not matter much one way or
the other. A persuasion of something momentous about to
be accomplished deepened in him. The madness of going,
which had so pushed him earlier in the day, fell dead before
it. For this concourse of living creatures must be gathered
together to witness some event commensurate in importance
with the greatness of their number. He felt sure of that.
Yes — before long they would swarm. Incontestably they
would swarm ! — Again he drew aside the velvet drapery and
looked down curiously upon the arena and its occupants.
For a new idea had come to him regarding these last. They

RAKE'S PROGRESS 529

still presented the effect of a throng of busy, angry insects.
But Richard knew better. He had penetrated their disguise,
a disguise assumed to insure their ultimate purpose with the
greater certainty. He knew them to be human. He knew
their purpose to be a moral one. And, looking upon them,
recognising the spirit which animated them, he was taken with
a reverence and sympathy for average, toiling humanity unfelt
by him before. For he saw that by these, the workers, the
final issues are inevitably decided, by these the final verdict is
pronounced. Individually they may be contemptible, but in
their corporate intelligence, corporate strength, they are little
short of majestic. Of art, letters, practical civilisation, even
religion, even, in a degree, nature herself, they are alike archi-
tects and judges. It must be so. It always has been so time
out of mind in point of fact. And then he wondered why
they were so patient of constraint ? Why had they not risen
long ago and obliterated the pretensions of those arrogant, in-
dolent larvae peopling the angular apertures of the honey cells
— those larvae of whom, by birth and wealth, sinfulness and
uselcssness, he was himself so conspicuous an example ?

But then still clearer understanding of this v/hole strange
matter came to him. — They, like all else, — mighty though
they are in their corporate intention, — are obedient to fate.
They can only act when the time is ripe. And then he un-
derstood yet more clearly. Their purpose in congregating
here, whether they were conscious of it or not, was retribu-
tive. They were present to witness and to accomplish an
act of foreordained justice. — Richard paused a moment, strug-
gling with his own thought. And then he saw quite plainly
that he himself was the object of that act of foreordained
justice, he himself was the centre of that dimly-apprehended,
approaching event. His punishment, his deliverance by means
of that punishment, was that which had brought this great
multitude together here to-night. He was awed. Yet with
that awe came thankfulness, gratitude, an immense sense of
relief. He need not seek self-obliteration, losing himself in
far-away, tropic islands, or the ice-bound regions of the utter-
most South. He could stay here. Sit quite still even — and
that was well, for he was horribly tired and spent. He need
only wait. When the time was ripe, they would do all the
rest — do it for him by doing it to him. — How finely simple it

SiO. Sir RICHARD CALMADY

all was ! Incidentally he wondered if it would hurt very
much. Not that that mattered, for beyond lay peace. Only
he hoped they would get to work pretty soon, so that it might
be over before the end of the second act, when Powell, the
valet, would come back.

Richard^s face had grown very youthful and eager. His
eyes were unnaturally bright. And still he gazed down at
that great company. His heart went out to it. He loved it,
loved each and every member of it, as he had never conceived
of loving heretofore. He would like to have gone down
among them and become part of them, one with them in pur-
pose, a partaker of their corporate strength. But that was
forbidden. They were his preordained executioners. Yet in
that capacity they were not the less, but the more, lovable^
They were welcome to exact full justice. He longed after
them, longed after the pain it was their mission to inflict. —
And they were getting ready, surely they were getting ready !
There was a sensible movement among them. They turned
pale faces away from the brilliantly lighted stage, and towards
the great horseshoe of waxen cells enclosing them. They
were busy, dull-coloured insects again, and they buzzed — re-
sentfully, angrily, they buzzed.

Yet even while Dickie noted all this, greatly moved by it,
appreciating its inner meaning, its profound relation to him-
self and the drama of his own existence, he was not wholly
unmindful of the progress of the opera and the charm of the
graceful and fluent music which saluted his ears. He was
aware of the entrance of the hero, of his greeting by his
motley-clad followers. He felt kindly, just off the surface of
his emotion so to speak, towards this impersonator of Ernani.
The young actor's appearance was attractive, his voice fresh
and sympathetic, his bearing modest. But the aristocratic
occupants of the boxes treated him cavalierly. The famous
Milanese tenor, whose name was on the programme, having
failed to arrive, this local, and comparatively inexperienced,
artist had been called upon to fill his part. Therefore the
smart world talked more loudly than before, while the demo-
cratic occupants of the parterre^ jealous for the reputation of
their fellow-citizen, broke forth into stormy protest. And
Richard could have found it in his heart to protest also. For
it was waste of energy, this senseless conflict ! It was un-

RAKE'S PROGRESS 531

worthy of the dignity of that dull-coloured multitude, on
whom his hopes were so strangely set — of the men in whose
hands are the final rewards and punishments, by whose voice
the final judgment is pronounced. It pained him to see these
ministers of the Eternal Justice thus led away by trivial hap-
penings, and their attention distracted from the main issue.
For what, in God's name, did he and his sentimental love-
carrollings amount to, this pretty fellow of a player, this fic-
titious hero of the modern, Neapolitan, operatic stage ?
Weighed in the balances, he and his whole occupation and
calling were lighter, surely, than vanity itself ? Rightly con-
sidered, he and his singing were but as a spangle, as some
glittering trifle of tinsel, upon the veil still hiding the awful,
yet benign, countenance of that tremendous and so surely ap-
proaching event. — Let him sing away, then, sing in peace.
For the sound of his singing might help to lighten the weari-
ness of the hours until the supreme hour should strike, and the
glittering veil be torn asunder, and the countenance it covered
be at last and wholly revealed.

Reasoning thus, Richard raised his opera glasses and swept
those many superimposed ranges of waxen cells. And the
aspect of them was to him very sinister, for everywhere he
seemed to encounter soft, voluptuous, brainless faces, violences
of hot colour, and costly clothing cunningly devised to
heighten the physical allurements of womanhood. Every-
where, beside and behind these, he seemed to encounter the
faces of men, gluttonous of pleasure, hungering for those gen-
erously-discovered, material charms. They were veritable
antechambers of vice, those angular-mouthed, waxen cells.
And, therefore, very fittingly, as he reflected, he had his place
in one of them, since he was infected by the vices, active par-
taker in the sensuality, of his class. — Oh ! that the bees would
swarm — swarm, and make short work of it all, inflict com-
pleteness of punishment, and thereby cleanse him and set him
free ! In its intensity his longing came near taking the form
of articulate prayer.

And then his thought shifted once more, attaching itself
curiously, speculatively, to individual objects. For his survey
of the house had just now brought a box into view, situated
on the grand tier and almost immediately opposite his own.
It was occupied by a party of six persons. With four of

53i SIR RICHARD CALMADY

those persons Richard was aware he had nothing to do. But
with the remaining two persons — a woman fashioned, as it
appeared, of ivory and gold, and a young man standing almost
directly behind her — he had much, everything, in fact, to do.
It was incomprehensible to him that he had not observed these
two persons sooner, since they were as necessary to the accom-
plishment of that terrible, yet beneficent, approaching event as
he himself was. The woman he knew actually and intimately,
though as yet he could give her no name, nor recall in what
his knowledge of her consisted. The young man he knew
inferentially. And Dickie was sensible of regarding him with
instinctive repulsion, since his appearance presented a living
and grossly ribald caricature of a figure august, worshipful,
and holy. Long and closely Richard studied those two per-
sons, studied them, forgetful of all else, straining his memory
to place them. And all the while they talked.

But, at last, the woman fashioned of ivory and gold ceased
talking. She folded her arms upon the velvet cushion of the
front of the box and gazed right out into the theatre. There
was a splendid arrogance in the pose of her head, and in the
droop of her eyelids. Then she looked up and across, straight
at Richard. He saw her drooping eyelids raised, her eyes
open wide, and remain fixed as in amazement. A something
alert, and very fierce, came into her expression. She seemed
to think carefully for a brief space. She threw back her head,
and he saw uncontrollable laughter convulse her beautiful
throat. And, at that same moment, a mighty outburst of
applause and of welcome shook the great theatre from floor to
ceiling, and, as it died away, the voice of the famous soprano^
rich and compelling as of old, swelled out, and made vibrant
with passionate sweetness the whole atmosphere. And Rich-
ard hailed that glorious voice, not that in itself it moved him
greatly, but because in it he recognised the beginning of the
end. It came as prelude to catastrophe which was also sal-
vation.— Very soon the bees would swarm nowl He rallied
his patience. He had not much longer to wait.

Meanwhile he looked back at that box on the grand tier,
striving to unriddle the mystery of his knowledge of those two
persons. He needed glasses no longer. His sight had be-
come preternaturally keen. Again the two were talking — and
about him, that was somehow evident. And, as they talked, he

RAKE'S PROGRESS 533

beheld a being, exquisitely formed, perfect in every part, Step
forth from between the lips of the woman fashioned of ivory
and gold. It knelt upon one knee. Over the heads of the
vast, dull-coloured multitude of workers, those witnesses of
and participators in the execution of Eternal Justice, it gazed
at him, Richard Calmady, and at him alone. And its gaze
enfolded and held him like an embrace. It wooed him, ex-
tending its arms in invitation. It was naked and unashamed.
It was black — black as the reeking, liquid lanes between the
hulls of the many ships, over which the screaming gulls circled
seeking foul provender, down in Naples harbour. — And he
knew the fair woman it came forth from for Helen de Val-
lorbes, herself, in her crocus-yellow govv^n sewn with seed
pearls. And he knew it for the immortal soul of her. And
he perceived, moreover, as it smiied on and beckoned him
with lascivious gestures, that its hands and its lips were bloody,
since it had broken the hearts of living women and torn and
devoured the honour of living men.

'' Ernanl^ Ernani^ involami " — still the air was vibrant with
that glorious voice. But the love of which it was the ex-
ponent, the flight which It counseled, had ceased, to Richard's
hearing, to bear relation to that which is earthly, concrete, and
of the senses. The passion and promise of it were alike
turned to nobler and more permanent uses, presaging the quick
coming of expiation and of reconciliation contained In that
supreme event. For he knew that, in a little moment, Helen
must arise and follow the soul which had gone forth from her
—-the soul of which, in all its admirable perfection of outward
form and blackness of intimate lies and lust, was close to him
— though he no longer actually beheld it — here, beside him,
laying subtle siege to him even yet. Where It went, there,
of necessity, she who owned it must shortly follow, since soul
and body cannot remain apart, save for the briefest space,
until death effect their final divorce. Therefore Helen would
come speedily. It could not be otherwise — so, at least, he
argued. And her coming meant the culmination. Then,
time being fully ripe, the bees would swarm, swarm at last, —
labour revenging itself upon sloth, hunger upon gluttony, want
upon wealth, obscurity upon privilege, — justice being thus
meted out, and he, Richard, cleansed and delivered from the

534 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

disgrace of deformity now so hideously infecting both his
spirit and his flesh.

Of this he was so well assured that, disregarding the felt,
though unseen, presence of that errant soul, disdaining to do
battle with it, he leaned forward once more, looking down into
the close-packed arena of the great theatre. All those bril-
liant figures, members of his own class, here present, were
matter of indifference to him. In this moment of conscious
and supreme farewell, it was to the dull-coloured multitude
that he turned. They still moved him to sympathy. Uncon-
sciously they had enlightened him concerning matters of in-
finite moment. At their hands he would receive penance and
absolution. Before they dealt more closely with him, — since
that dealing must involve suffering which might temporarily
cloud his friendship for them, — he wanted to bid them farewell
and assure them of his conviction of the righteousness of
their corporate action. So, silently, he blessed them, taking
leave of them in peace. Then he found there were other
farewells to be said. — Farewell to earthly life as he had known
it, the struggle and very frequent anguish of it, its many frus-
trated purposes, fair illusions, unfulfilled hopes. He must bid
farewell, moreover, to art as he had relished it — to learning,
as he had all too intermittently pursued it — to travel, as he had
found solace in it — to the inexhaustible interest, the inex-
tinguishable humour and pathos, in brief, of things seen.
And, reviewing all this, a profound nostalgia of all those minor
happinesses which are the natural inheritance of the average
man arose in him — happiness of healthy, light-hearted activ-
ities, not only of the athlete and the fighting-man, but of the
playing-field, and the ball-room, and the river — happinesses to
him inevitably denied. With an almost boyish passion of
longing, he cried out for these. — Just for one day to have
lived with the ease and freedom with which the vast majority
of men habitually live ! Just for one day to have been neither
dwarf nor cripple, but to have taken his place and his chance
with the rest, before it all was over and the tale told !

But very soon Richard put these thoughts from him, deem-
ing it unworthy to dwell upon them at this juncture. The
call was to go forward, not to go back. So he settled himself
in his chair once more, pulling the velvet drapery forward so
as to shut out the sight of the house. Bitterness should have

RAKE'S PROGRESS I35

no part in him. When that happened which was appointed
to happen, it must find him not only acquiescent but serene
and undisturbed. He composed himself, therefore, with a
•decent and even lofty pride. Then he turned his eyes upon
the narrow door, there in the semi-obscurity of the back of
the box, and waited. And all the while royally, triumphantly,
Morbita sang.

During tliat period of waiting — whether in itself brief or
prolonged, he knew not — sensation and thought alike were
curiously in abeyance. Richard neither slept nor woke. He
knew that he existed, but all active relation to being had
ceased. And it was with painful effort he in a measure re-
turned to more ordinary correspondence with fact, aroused by
the sound of low-toned, emphatic speech close at hand, and
by a scratching as of some animal denied and seeking admit-
tance. Then he perceived that the door yielded, letting in <
spread of yellow brightness from the corridor. And in thv
midst of that brightness, part and parcel of it thanks to th^.
lustre of her crocus-yellow dress, her honey-coloured hair, hei
fair skin and softly-gleaming ornaments, stood Helen de Val-
lorbes. Behind her, momentarily, Richard caught sight of
the young man whose face had impressed him as a ribald
travesty of that of some being altogether worshipful and holy.
The face peered at him with, as it seemed, malicious curiosity
over the rounded shoulder of the woman of ivoiy and gold,
The effect was very hateful, and, with a sense of thankfulness,
Richard saw Helen close the door and come, alone, down the
two steps leading from the back of the box. As she passed
from the dimness into the clearer light, he watched her, quies^
cent, yet with absorbing interest. For he perceived that the
hands of the clock had been put back somehow. Intervening
years and the many events of them had ceased to obtain, so
that, of all the many Helens, enchanting or evil, whom he had
come to know, he saw now only one, and that the first and
earliest — a little dancer, with blush-roses in her hat, dainty aa
a toy, finished to her rosy finger-tips and the toes of her pretty
shoes, merry and merciless, as she had pirouetted round him
mocking his shuffling, uncertain progress across the Chapel-
Room at Brockhurst fifteen years ago.

" Ah ! so you have come back ! " he exclaimed, almost in^
voluntarily.

536 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Madam de Vallorbes pushed a chair from the front of the
box into the shadow of the velvet draperies beside Richard.

" It is unnecessary that all Naples should take part in our
interview," she said. She sat down, turning to him, leaning a
little towards him.

" You do not deserve that I should come back, you know,
Dickie," she continued. " You both deserted and deceived
me. That is hardly chivalrous, hardly just indeed, after ta-
king all a woman has to give. You led me to suppose you had
departed for good and all. Why should you deceive me ? "

'' The yacht was not ready for sea," Richard said simply*

'^ Then you might, in common charity, have let me know
that. You were bound to give me an opportunity of speaking
to you once again, I think."

In his present state of detachment from all worldly consid-
erations, absolute truthfulness compelled Richard. The event
was so certain, the swarming of the bees so very near, that small
diplomacies, small evasions, seemed absurdly out of place.

'' I did not want to hear you speak," he said.

'' But doesn't it strike you that was rather dastardly in face
of what had taken place between us ? Do you know that you
appear in a new and far from becoming light ? "

Denial seemed to Richard futile. He remained silent.

For a moment Helen looked towards the stage. When she
spoke again it was as with reluctance.

" I was desperately unhappy. I went all over the villa in
the vain hope of finding you. I went back to that room of
yours in which we parted. I wanted to see it again." —
Helen paused. Her speech was low-toned, soft as milk. — " It
was rather dreadful, Dickie, for the place was all in disarray,
littered with signs of your hasty departure, damp, cheerless —
the rain beating against the windows. And I hate rain. I
found there, not you — v/hom I so sorely wanted — but some-
thing very much else. — A letter to you from de Vallorbes." —
Once more she paused. " I excuse you of anything worse
than negligence in omitting to destroy it. Misery knows no
law, and I was miserable. I read it."

Richard had listened with the same detachment.^ yet the
same absorbed interest, with which he had watched her en-
trance. She was a wonderful creature in her adroitness, in
her handling of means to serve her own ends ! But he could

RAKE'S PROGRESS 537

not pay her back in her own coin. The time was too short
lor anything but simple truth. He felt strangely tired. These
reiterated delays became harassing. If the bees would swarm^
only swarm ! Then it would be over, and he could sleep. He
clasped his hands behind his head and looked at Madame de
Vallorbes. Her soul kneeled on her lap, its delicate arms
were clasped about her neck — black against the lustrous white
of her skin and all those twisted ropes of seed pearls. It
pressed its breasts against hers, amorously. It loved her and
she it. And he understood that in the whole scope of nature
there was but it alone, it only, that she ever had loved, or did^
or could, love. And, understanding this, he was filled with a
great compassion for her. And, answering her, his expression
was gentle and pitiful. Still he needs must speak the truth.

" Perhaps it was as well that you should read Luigi's letter,""
he said.

She turned upon him fiercely and scornfully, yet even as she
did so her soul fell to beckoning to him, soliciting him with
evilly alluring gestures.

" My congratulations to you," she exclaimed, " upon your
praiseworthy candour ! I am to gather, then, that you believe
that which my husband advises himself to tell you ? Under
the circumstances it is exceedingly convenient to you to do so^
no doubt."

" How can I avoid believing it ? " Richard asked, quite
sweet-temperedly. " Surely wc need not waste the little time
which remains in argument as to that ? You must admit^
Helen, that Luigi's letter fits in. It supplies just the piece of
the puzzle which was missing. It tallies with all the rest."

" All the rest ? "

" Oh yes ! It is part of the whole, precisely that part both
of you and of Naples which I knew, and tried so hard not to
know, from the first. But it is worse than useless to practice
such refusals. The Whole, and nothing less than the whole,
is bound to get one in the end. It is contrary to the nature
of things that any integral portion of the whole should sub-
mit to permanent denial." — Richard's voice deepened. He
spoke with a subdued enthusiasm, thinking of the dull-col-
oured multitude there in the arena and the act of retributive
justice on the eve, by them, of accomplishment. — " It seems
to me the radical weakness of all human institutions, of all sys-

538 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

tems of thought, resides in exactly that effort to select and re«
ject, to exalt one part as against another part, and so build not
upon the rock of unity and completeness, but upon the sand
of partiality and division. And sooner or later the Whole
revenges itself, and the fine-fanciful fabric crumbles to ruin,
just for lack of that which in our short-sighted over-niceness
we have taken such mighty great pains to miss out. This has
happened times out of number in respect of religions, and
philosophies, and the constitution of kingdoms, and in that
of fair romances which promised to stand firm to all eternity.
And now, now, in these last few days, — since laws which
rule the general, also rule the individual life, — it has happened
in respect of you, Helen, to my seeing, and in respect of
Naples." — Richard smiled upon her sadly and very sweetly. —
"I am sorry," he said, "yes, indeed, horribly sorry. It is a
bitter thing to see the last of one's gods go overboard. But
there is no remedy. Sorry or not, so it is."

Madame de Vallorbes looked at him keenly. Her attitude
was strained. Her face sombre with thought.

" My God ! my God ! " she exclaimed, " that I should sit
and listen to all this ! And yet you were never more attract-
ive. There is an unnatural force, unnatural beauty about you.
You are ill, Richard. You look and you speak as a man might
who was about to join hands with death."

But Dickie's attention had wandered again. He pulled the
velvet drapery aside somewhat, and gazed down into the
crowded house. They lingered strangely in the performance
of their mission, that dull-coloured multitude of workers ! —
Just then came another mighty outburst of applause, cries,
vivas^ the famous soprano's name called aloud. The sound
was stimulating, as the shout of a victorious army. Richard
hailed it as a sign of speedy deliverance, and sank back into
his place.

" Oh yes ! " he said civilly and lightly, " I fancy I am
pretty bad. I am a bit sick of this continued delay, you see.
I suppose they know their own business best, but they do
seem most infernally slow in getting under weigh. I was
ready hours ago. However, they must be nearly through with
preliminaries now. And when once we're fairly into it, I
>hall be all right."

" You mean when the yacht sails ? " Madame de Vallorbes

RAKE'S PROGRESS 539^

asked. Still she looked at him intently. He turned to her
smiling, and she observed that his eyes had ceased to be as
windows opening back on to empty space. They were lumi-
nous with a certain gay content.

" Yes, of course — when the yacht sails, if you like to put
it that way," he answered.

" And when will that be ? "

The shout of the arena grew louder in the recall. It surged
up to the roof and quivered along the lath and plaster parti-
tions of the boxes.

" Very soon now. Immediately, I think, please God," he
said. — But why should she make him speak thus foolishly ia
riddles ? Of a surety she must read the signs of the approach
of that momentous and beneficent event as clearly as he him-
self! Was she not equally with himself involved in it?'
Was she not, like himself, to be cleansed and set free by it f
Therefore it came as a painful bewilderment and shock to him
when she drew closer to him, leaned forward, laid her hand
lightly upon his thigh.

" Richard," she said, very softly, " I forgive all. I am not
satisfied with loving. I will come with you. I will stay with
you. I will be faithful to you — yes, yes, even that. Your
loving is unlike any other. It is unique, as you yourself are
unique. I — I want more of it."

" But you must know that it is too late to go back on that
now," he said, reasoning with her, greatly perplexed and dis-
tressed by her determined ignoring of — to him — self-evident
fact. " All that side of things for us is over and done with.""

Her lips parted in naughty laughter. And then, not with-
out a shrinking of quick horror, Richard beheld the soul of
her — that being of lovely proportions, exquisitely formed in
every part, yet black as the foul, liquid lanes between the hulls
of the many ships down in Naples harbour — step delicately
in between those parted lips, returning whence it came. And^
beholding this, instinctively he raised her hand from where it
rested upon his thigh, and put it from him, put it upon her
glistering, crocus-yellow lap where her soul had so lately
kneeled.

" Let us say no more, Helen," he entreated, " lest we both
forfeit our remaining chance, and become involved in hopeless
and final condemnation."

540 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

But Madame de Vallorbes' anger rose to overwhelming
height. She slapped her hands together.

" Ah, you despise me ! " she cried. " But let me assure
you that in any case this assumption of virtue becomes you
singularly ill. It really is a little bit too cheap, a work of
supererogation in the matter of hypocrisy. Have the courage
of your vices. Be honest. You can be so to the point of
insult when it serves your purpose. Own that you are capri-
cious, own that you have lighted upon some woman who pro-
vokes your appetite more than I do ! I have been too tender
of you, too lenient with you. I have loved too much and
been weakly desirous to please. Own that you are tired of
me, that you no longer care for me ! "

And he answered, sadly enough : —

" Yes, that last is true. Having seen the Whole, that has
happened which I always dreaded might happen. The last of
my self-made gods has indeed gone overboard. I care for you
no longer.*'

Helen sprang up from her chair, ran to the door, flung it
©pen. The first act of the opera was concluded. The cur-
tain had come down. The house below and around, the
corridor without, were full of confused noise and move-
ment.

" Paul, M. Destournelle, come here," she cried, " and at
once ! "

But Richard was more than ever tired. The strain of
waiting had been too prolonged. Lights, draperies, figures,
the crowded arena, the vast honeycomb of boxes, tier above
tier, swam before his eyes, blurred, indistinct, vague, shifting,
colossal in height, giddy in depth. The bees were swarming,
at last, swarming upward through seas of iridescent mist.
But he had no longer empire over his own attitude and
thoughts. He had hoped to meet the supreme moment in full
consciousness, with clear vision and thankfulness of heart.
But he was too tired to do so, tired in brain and body alike.
And so it happened that a dogged endurance grew on him,
dimply a setting of the teeth and bracing of himself to suffer
silently, even stupidly, all that might be in store. For the
bees were close upon him now, countless in number, angry,
grudging, violent. But they no longer appeared as insects.
They were human, save for their velvet-like, expressionless

RAKE'S PROGRESS 541

eyes. And all those eyes were fixed upon him, and him
alone. He was the centre towards which, in thought and
action, all turned. Nor were the dull-coloured occupants of
the parterre alone in their attack. For those gay-coloured
larvae — the men and women of his own class — indolent^
licentious, full-fed, hung out of the angular mouths of the
waxen cells, above the crimson and gold of their cushions^
pointing at him, claiming and yet denouncing him. And in the
attitude of these the democratic and the aristocratic sections — ^
he detected a difference. The former swarmed to inflict
punishment for his selfishness, uselessness, sensuality. But
the latter jeered and mocked at his bodily infirmity, deriding
his deformity, making merry over his shortened limbs and
shuffling walk. And against this background, against this all-
enclosing tapestry of faces which encircled him, two per-
sons, and the atmosphere and aroma of them, so to spcak^
were clearly defined. They were close to him, here within
the narrow limits of the opera box. Then a great humilia-
tion overtook Richard, perceiving that they, and not the
people, the workers, august in their corporate power and
strength, were to be his executioners. — No — no — he wasn't
worth that ! And, for all his present dulness of sensation, a
sob rose in his throat. Madame de Vallorbes, resplendent in
crocus-yellow brocade, costly lace, and seed pearls, the young
man, her companion — the young man of the light, forked
beard, domed skull, vain eyes and peevish mouth — the young
man of holy and dissolute aspect — were good enough instru-
ments for the Eternal Justice to employ in respect of him,
Richard Calmady.

"Look, M. Destournelle," Helen said very quietly, ''this
is my cousin of whom I have already spoken to you. But I
wished to spare him if possible, and give him room for self-
justification, so I did not tell you all. Richard, this is my
friend, M. Destournelle, to whom my honour and happiness
are not wholly indifferent."

Dickie looked up. He did not speak. Vaguely he prayed
it might all soon be over. Paul Destournelle looked down.
He raised his eye-glass and bowed himself, examining Richard's
mutilated legs and strangely-shod feet. He broke into a
little, bleating, goat-like laugh.

^^Mais c'est etonnant ! " he observed reflectively.

542 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"I was in his house," Helen continued. "I was there
unprotected, having absolute faith in his loyalty." — She
paused a moment. " He seduced me. Richard can you deny
that ? "

^^ Canaille ! " M. Destournelle murmured. He drew a pair
of gloves through his hands, holding them by the finger-tips.
The metal buttons of them were large, three on each wrist.
Those gloves arrested Richard's attention oddly,

" I do not deny it, " Dickie said.

" And having thus outraged, he deserted me. Do you deny
that ? "

" No," Dickie said again. For it was true, that which she
asserted, true, though penetrated by subtle falsehood im-
possible, as it seemed to him, to combat, — "No, I do not
<ieny it."

" You hear ! " Helen exclaimed. " Now do what you
think fit."

Still Destournelle drew the gloves through his hands, hold-
ing them by the finger-tips.

" Under other circumstances I might feel myself compelled
to do you the honour of sending you a challenge, monsieur^^
he said. '^ But a man of sensibility like myself cannot do
^uch violence to his moral and artistic code as to fight with an
outcast of nature, an abortion, such as yourself. The sword
and the pistol I necessarily reserve for my equals. The de-
formed person, the cripple, whose very existence is an off^ense
to the eye and to every delicacy of sense, must be con-
descended to, and, if chastised at all, must be chastised with-
out ceremony, chastised as one would chastise a dog."

And with that he struck Richard again and again across the
face with those metal-buttoned gloves.

Mad with rage, blinded and sick with pain, Dickie essayed
to fling himself upon his assailant. But Destournelle was too
adroit for him. He skipped aside, with his little, bleating,
goat-like laugh, and Richard fell heavily full length, his fore-
head coming in contact with the lower step of the descent
from the back of the box. He lay there, too weak to raise
iiimself.

Paul Destournelle bent down and again examined him
curiously.

"CVj/ etonnant!** he repeated. — He gave the prostrate

RAKE'S PROGRESS 543

body a contemptuous kick. " Dear madame, are you suffi-
ciently avenged ? Is it enough ? " he inquired sneeringly.

And vaguely, as from some incalculable distance, Richard
heard Helen de Vallorbes' voice : — " Yes — it is a little affair
of honour which dates from my childhood. It has taken
many years in adjusting. I thank you, mon cher^ a thousand
times. Now let us go quickly. It is enough."

Then came darkness, silence, rest.

BOOK VI

THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW

EARTH

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH MISS ST. QUENTIN BEARS WITNESS TO THE FAITH

THAT IS IN HER

IIJONORIA divested herself of her traveling-cap, thrust
her hands into the pockets of her frieze ulster, and
thus, bareheaded, a tall, supple, solitary figure, paced the rail-
way platform in the dusk. Above the gentle undulations of
the western horizon splendours of rose-crimson sunset were
outspread, veiled, as they flamed upward, by indigo cloud of
the texture and tenuity of finest gauze. And those same
rose-crimson splendours found repetition upon the narrow,
polished surface of the many lines of rails, causing them to
stand out, as though of red-hot metal, from the undeterminate
gray-drab of the track where it curved away, southeastward,
across the darkening country towards the Savoy Alps. And
from out the fastnesses of these last, quick with the bleak
purity of snow, came a breathing of evening wind. To
Honoria it brought refreshing emphasis of silence, and of im-
munity from things human and things mechanical. It spoke
to her of virgin and unvisited spaces, ignorant of mankind
and of obligation to his so many and so insistent needs. And
there being in Honoria herself a kindred defiance of subjec-
tion, a determination, so to speak, of physical and emotional
chastity, she welcomed these intimations of the essential in-
violability of nature, finding in them justification and support

544

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 545

of her own mental attitude — of the entire wisdom of which
she had, it must be owned, grown slightly suspicious of late.

And this was the more grateful to her, not only as contrast
to the noise and dust of a lengthy and hurriedly-undertaken
journey, but because that same journey had been suddenly
and, in a sense violently, imposed upon one whom she held
in highest regard, by another whom she had long since agreed
with herself to hold in no sort of regard at all. Since the
highly-regarded one set forth, she — Honoria — of course, set
forth likewise. And yet, in good truth, the whole affair
rubbed her not a little the wrong way ! She recognised in it
a particularly flagrant example of masculine aggression. Some
persons, as she reflected, are permitted an amount of elbow
room altogether disproportionate to their deserts. Be suffi-
ciently seltish, sufficiently odious, and everybody becomes your
humble servant, hat in hand ! That is unfair. It is, indeed,
quite extensively exasperating to the dispassionate onlooker.
And, in Miss St. Quentin's case, exasperation was by na
means lessened by the fact that candour compelled her to ad-
mit doubt not only as to the actuality of her own dispassion-
ateness, but, as has already been stated, to the wisdom of her
mental attitude generally. She wanted to think and feel one
way. She was more than half afraid she was much disposed
to think and feel quite another way. This was worrying..
And, therefore, it came about that Honoria hailed the present
interval of silence and solitude, striving to put from her re-
membrance both the origin and object of her journey, while
filling her lungs with the snow-fed purity of the mountain
wind and yielding her spirit to the somewhat serious influences
of surrounding nature. All too soon the great Paris-express
would thunder into the station. The heavy, horse-box-like
sleeping-car — now standing on the Culoz-Geneva-Bale siding
— would be coupled to the rear of it. Then the roar and
rush would begin again — from dark to dawn, and on through
the long, bright hours to dark once more, by mountain gorge,
and stifling tunnel, and broken woodland, and smiling coast-
line, and fertile plain, past Chambery, and Turin, and Bo-
logna, and mighty Rome herself, until the journey was ended
and distant Naples reached at last.

But Miss St. Quentin's communings with nature were des-
tined to speedy interruption. Ludovic Quayle's elongated

546 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

person, clothed to the heels in a check traveling-coat, de-
tached itself from the company of waiting passengers, and
blue-linen-clad porters, upon the central platform before the
main block of station buildings, and made its light and active
way across the intervening lines of crimson-stained metals.

" If I am a nuisance mention that chastening fact without
hesitation," he said, standing on the railway track and looking
up at her with his air of very urbane intelligence. " Present
circumstances permit us the privilege — or otherwise — of lay-
ing aside restraints of speech, along with other small proprie-
ties of behaviour commonly observed by the polite. So don't
spare my feelings, dear Miss St. Quentin. If I am a bore,
tell me so, and I will return, and that without any lurking
venom in my breast, whence I came."

" Do anything you please," Honoria replied, " except be
run over by the Paris train."

" The Paris train, so I have just learned, is an hour late,
consequently its arrival hardly enters into the question. But,
since you are graciously pleased to bid me do as I like, I stay,"
Mr. Quaylc returned, stepping on to the platform and turning
to pace beside her. — "What a gaol delivery it is to get into
the open! That last engine of ours threw ashes to a truly
penitential extent. My mouth and throat still claim unpleas-
antly close relation to a neglected, kitchen grate. And if our
much vaunted waggon-lits is the last word of civilisation in
connection with travel, then all I can say is that, in my hum-
ble opinion, civilisation has yet a most exceedingly long way
to go. It really is a miraculously uncomfortable vehicle.
And how Lady Calmady contrives to endure its eccentricities
of climate and of motion, I'm sure I don't know."

" In her case the end would make any sort of means sup-
portable," Honoria answered.

Her pacings had brought her to the extreme end of the
platform where it sloped to the level of the track. She stood
there a moment, her head thrown back, snuffing the wind as
a hind, breaking covert, stands and snufFs it. A spirit of
questioning possessed her, though not — as in the hind's case
— of things concrete and material. It is true she could have
dispensed with Mr. Quayle's society. She did not want him.
But he had shown himself so full of resource, so considerate
and helpful, ever since the news of Sir Richard Calmady's

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 547

desperate state had broken up the peace of the little party at
Ormiston Castle, now five days ago, that she forgave him
even his preciousness of speech, even his slightly irritating
superiority of manner. She had ceased to be on her guard
with him during these days of travel, had come to take his
presence for granted and to treat him with the comfortable in-
difference of honest good-fellowship. So, it followed that
now, speaking with him, she continued to follow out her
existing train of thought.

" Tm by no means off my head about poor Dickie Cal^
mady," she said presently, — '^ specially where Cousin Kath-
erine is concerned. I couldn't go on caring about anybody^
irrespective of their conduct, just because they were they*^
And yet I can't help seeing it must be tremendously satisfy-
ing to feel like that."

"A thousand pardons," Ludovic murmured, "but like
what ? "

"Why as Cousin Katherine feels — ^just whole-heartedly^
without analysis, and without alloy — to feel that no distance,
no fatigue, no nothing in short, matters, so long as she gets
to him in time, I don't approve of such a state of mind, and
yet "— Honoria wheeled round, facing the glory of colour
dyeing all the west — " and yet, I'm untrue enough to my own
principles rather to envy it."

She sighed, and that sigh her companion noted and filed for
reference. Indeed, an unusually expansive cheerfulness be-
came perceptible in Mr. Quayle.

" By the bye, is there any further news ? " she inquired.

" General Ormiston has just had a telegram."

" Anything fresh ? "

" Still unconscious, strength fairly maintained."

" Oh ! we know that by heart ! " Honoria said.

"We do. And we know the consequences of it — the
sweet little see-saw of hope and fear, productive of unlimited
discussion and anxiety. No weak letting one stand at ease
about that telegram ! It keeps one's nose hard down on the
grindstone."

"If he dies," Honoria said slowly, "if he dies — poor, dear
Cousin Katherine ! — When can we hear again ? "

" At Turin," Mr. Quayle replied.

Then they both fell silent until the far end of the platform

548 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

was reached. And there, once more, Honoria paused, her
small head carried high, her serious eyes fixed upon the sun-
set. The rosy light falling upon her failed to disguise the
paleness of her face or its slight angularity of line. She was
a little worn and travel-stained, a little disheveled even. Yet
to her companion she had rarely appeared more charming.
She might be tired, she might even be somewhat untidy, but
her innate distinction remained — nay, gained, so he judged, by
suggestion of rough usage endured. Her absolute absence of
affectation, her unself-consciousness, her indifference to ad-
ventitious prettinesses of toilet, her transparent sincerity, were
very entirely approved by Ludovic Quayle.

" Yes, that see-saw of hope and fear must be an awful
ordeal, feeling as she does," Miss St. Quentin said presently.
*^ And yet, even so, I am uncertain. 1 can't help wondering
which really is best ! "

"Again a thousand pardons," the young man put in, " but
I venture to remind you that I was not cradled in the fore-
court of the temple of the Pythian Apollo, but only in the
nursery of a conspicuously Philistine, English country-house."

For the first time during their conversation Honoria looked
full at him. Her glance was very friendly, yet it remained
meditative, even a trifle sad.

Oh ! I know, I'm fearfully inconsequent," she said.

But my head is simply rattled to pieces by that beastly
ftvaggon-lit. I had gone back to what I was thinking about
before you joined me, and to what we were saying just now
about Cousin Katherine."

" Yes — yes, exactly," Ludovic put in tentatively. She was
going to give herself away — he was sure of it. And such
giving away might make for opportunity. In spirit, the
young man proceeded to take his shoes from off his feet. The
ground on which he stood might prove to be holy. More-
over Miss St. Quentin's direct acts of self-revelation were
few and far between. He was horribly afraid those same
shoes of his might creak, so to speak, thereby startling her
into watchfulness, making her draw back. But Honoria did
not draw back. She was too much absorbed by her own
thought. She continued to contemplate the glory of the flam-
ing west, her expression touched by a grave and noble
enthusiasm.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 549

*' I suppose one can't help worrying a little at times — it's
laid hold of me very much during the last month or two — as-
to what is really the finest way to take life. One wants to
arrive at that fairly early *, not by a process of involuntary^
elimination, on the burnt-child-fears-the-fire sort of principle,
when the show's more than half over, as so many people do.
One wants to get hold of the stick by the right end now^
while one's still comparatively young, and then work straight
along. I want my reason to be the backbone of my action,
don't you know, instead of merely the push of society and.
friendship, and superficial odds and ends of so-called obliga-
tion to other people."

" Yes," Mr. Quayle put in again.

" Now, it seems to me, that " — Honoria extended one
hand towards the sunset — " is Cousin Katherine's outlook on
life and humanity, full of colour, full of warmth. It burns,
with a certain prodigality of beauty, a superb absence of
economy in giving. And that " — with a little shrug of her
shoulders she turned towards the severe, and sombre, easterrt
landscape — " that, it strikes me, comes a good deal nearer my
own. Which is best ? "

Mr. Quayle congratulated himself upon the removal of his
shoes. The ground was holy — holy to the point of em-
barrassment even to so unabashable and ready-tongued a
gentleman as himself. He answered with an unusual degree
of diffidence.

" An intermediate position is neither wholly inconceivable
nor wholly untenable, perhaps."

"And you occupy it ? Yes, you are very neatly balanced.
But then, do you really get anywhere .? "

" Is not that a rather knavish speech, dear Miss St.
Quentin ? " the young man inquired mildly,

" I don't know," she answered, " I wish to goodness I
did."

Now was here god-given opportunity, or merely a cunningly
devised snare for the taking of the unwary ? Ludovic pon-
dered the matter. He gently kicked a little pebble from the
dingy gray-drab of the asphalt on to the permanent way. It
struck one of the metals with a sharp click. A blue-linen-clad
porter, short of stature and heavy of build, lighted the gas
lamps along the platform. The flame of these wavered at

550 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

first, and flickered, showing thin and will-o'-the-wisp-like
against the great outspread of darkening country across which
the wind came with a certain effect of harshness and barren-
ness— the inevitable concomitant of its inherent purity. And
the said wind treated Miss St. Quentin somewhat discourte-
ously, buffeting her, obliging her to put up both hands to push
back stray locks of hair. Also the keen breath of it pierced
her, making her shiver a little. Both of which things her
companion noting, took heart of grace.

" Is It permitted to renew a certain petition ? " he asked, in
a low voice.

Honoria shook her head.

" Better not, I think," she said.

"And yet, dear Miss St. Quentin, pulverised though I am
by the weight of my own unworthiness, I protest that petition
is not wholly foreign to the question you did me the honour
to ask me just now."

" Oh ! dear me ! You always contrive to bring it round to
that ! *' she exclaimed, not without a hint of petulance.

" Far from it," the young man returned. " For a good,
solia eighteen months, now, I have displayed the accumulated
patience of innumerable asses."

"Of course, I see what you're driving at," she continued
hastily. " But it is not original. It's just every man's stock
argument."

" If it bears the hall-mark of hoary antiquity, so much the
better. I entertain a reverence for precedent. And honestly,
as common sense goes, I am not ashamed of that of my sex."

Miss St. Quentin resumed her walk.

" You really think it stands in one's way," she said reflec-
tively, " you really think it a disadvantage, to be a woman ? "

" Oh ! good Lord ! " Mr. Quayle ejaculated, softly yet
with an air so humorously aghast that it could leave no doubt as
to the nature of his sentiments. Then he cursed himself for
a fool. His shoes indeed had made a mighty creaking! He
expected an explosion of scornful wrath. He admitted he
deserved it. It did not come.

Miss St. Quentin looked at him, for a moment, almost
:piteously. He fancied her mouth quivered and that her eyes
•filled with tears. Then she turned and swung away with her
Jong, easy, even stride. Mentally the young man took him-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 551

self by the throat, conscience-stricken at 'having humiliated
her, at having caused her to fall, even momentarily, from the
height of her serene, maidenly dignity. For once he became
absolutely uncritical, careless of appearances. He fairly ran
after her along the platform.

" Dear Miss St. Quentin," he called to her, in tones of
most persuasive apology.

But Honoria's moment of piteousness was past. She had
recovered all her habitual lazy and gallant grace when he
came up with her.

" No — no," she said. *' Hear me. I began this rather
foolish conversation. I laid myself open to — well to a snub-
bing. I got one, anyhow ! "

'' In mercy don't rub it in ! '* Mr. Quayle murmured con-
tritely.

" But I did," Honoria returned. " Now it's over and Fm
going to pick up the pieces and put them back in their places
— jun where they were before."

" But I protest ! — I hailed a new combination. I discover
in myself no wild anxiety to have the pieces put back just
where they were before."

*' Oh ! yes, you do," Honoria declared. " At least, you
certainly will when I explain it to you." — She paused. — " You
see," she said, " it is like this. Living with and watching
Cousin Katherine, I have come to know all that side of things
at its very finest."

" Forgive me. — It ? What .? May I recall to you the fact
of the Philistine nursery ? "

The young lady's delicate face straightened.

" You know perfectly well what I mean," she said. — " That
which we all think about so constantly, and yet affect to speak
of as a joke or a slight impropriety — love, marriage, mother-
hood."

" Yes, Lady Calmady is a past-master in those arts," Mr..
Quayle replied. — Again the ground was holy. He was con-
scious his pulse quickened.

" The beauty of it all, as one sees it in her case, breaks
one up a little. There is no laugh left in one about those
things. One sees that to her they are of the nature of rc'
Jigion — a religion pure and undefiled, a new way of knowing
God and of bringing oneself into line with the truth as it

552 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

is in Him. But, having once seen that, one can decline upon
no lower level. One grows ambitious. One will have it
that way or not at all."

Honoria paused again. The bleak wind buffeted her. But
she was no longer troubled or chilled by it, rather did it brace
her to greater fearlessness of resolve and of speech.

" You are contemptuous of women," she said.

"I have betrayed characteristics of the ass, other than its
patience," Ludovic lamented.

" Oh ! I didn't mean that," Honoria returned, smiling in
friendliest fashion upon him. '^ Every man worth the name
really feels as you do, I imagine. I don't blame you. Possibly
I am growing a trifle shaky as to feminine superiority, and
woman spelled with a capital letter, myself. I'm awfully
afraid she is safest — for herself and others — under slight re-
straint, in a state of mild subjection. She's not quite to be
trusted, either intellectually or emotionally — at least, the ma-
jority of her isn't. If she got her head, I've a dreadful
suspicion she would make a worse hash of creation generally
than you men have made of it already, and that" — Honoria's
eyes narrowed, her upper lip shortened, and her smile shone out
again delightfully — " that's saying a very great deal, you know."

" My spirits rise to giddy heights," Mr. Quayle exclaimed.
*^ I endorse those sentiments. But whence, oh, dear lady, this
change of front ? "

" Wait a minute. We've not got to the end of my con-
tention yet."

"The Paris train is late. There is time. And this is all
excellent hearing."

" I'm not quite so sure of that," Honoria said. " For, you
see, just in proportion as I give up the fiction of her superiority,
and admit that woman already has her political, domestic, and
social deserts, I feel a chivalry towards her, poor, dear thing,
which I never felt before. I even feel a chivalry towards the
woman in myself. She claims my pity and my care in a quite
new way."

" So much the better," Mr. Quayle observed, outwardly
discreetly urbane, inwardly almost riotously jubilant.

"Ah! wait a minute," she repeated. Her tone changed^
sobered. " I don't want to spread myself, but you know I can
meet men pretty well on their own ground. I could shoot and

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 553

fish as well as most of you, only that I don't think it right to
take life except to provide food, or in self-defense. There's not
so much happiness going that one's justified in cutting any of
it short. Even a jack-snipe may have his little affairs of the
heart, and a cock-S2.iimon his gamble. But I can ride as straight
as you can. I can break any horse to harness you choose to
put me behind. I can sail a boat and handle an axe. I can
turn my hand to most practical things — except a needle. I ovi^n
I always have hated a needle worse — well, worse than the
devil ! And I can organise, and can speak fairly well, and
manage business affairs tidily. And have I not even been
known — low be it spoken — to beat you at lawn tennis, and
Lord Shotover at billiards ? "

"And to overthrow my most Socratic father in argument.
And outwit my sister Louisa in diplomacy — vide our poor, dear
Dickie Calmady's broken engagement, and the excellent,
scatter-brain Decies' marriage."

"But Lady Constance is happy? " Honoria put in hastily.

" Blissful, positively blissful, and with twins too ! Think
of it ! — Decies is blissful also. His sense of humour has
deteriorated since his marriage, from constant association
with good, little Connie who was never distinguished for ready
perception of a joke. He regards those small, simultaneous
replicas of himself with unqualified complacency, which
shows his appreciation of comedy must be a bit blunted."

" I wonder if it does ? " Miss St. Quentin observed re-
flectively. Whereat Mr. Quayle permitted himself a sound
as nearly approaching a chuckle as was possible to so superia
a person.

"A thousand pardons," he murmured, "but really, dear
lady, you are so very much off on the other tack."

"Am I ? " Miss St. Quentin said. " Well, you see — to go
back to my demonstration — I've none of the quarrel with your
side of things most women have, because I'm not shut out
from it, and so I don't envy you. I can amuse and interest
myself on your lines. And therefore I can afford to be very
considerate and tender of the woman in me. I grow more
and more resolved that she shall have the very finest going, or
that she shall have nothing, in respect of all which belongs to
her special province — in regard to love and marriage. In them
she shall have what Cousin Katherinc has had, and find what

554 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Cousin Katherine has found, or all that shall be a shut book
to her forever. Even if discipline and denial make her a
little unhappy, poor thing, that's far better than letting her de-
cline upon the second best."

Honoria's voice was full and sweet. She spoke from out
the deep places of her thought. Her whole aspect was in-
stinct with a calm and seasoned enthusiasm. And, looking
upon her, it became Ludovic Quayle's turn to find the even-
ing wind somewhat bleak and barren. It struck chill, and he
turned away and moved westwards towards the sunset. But
the rose-crimson splendours had become faint and frail, while
the indigo cloud had gathered into long, horizontal lines as of
dusky smoke, so that the remaining brightness was seen as
through prison bars. A sadness, indeed, seemed to hold the
west, even greater than that which held the east, since it was
a sadness not of beauty unborn, but of beauty dead. And
this struck home to the young man. He did not care to
speak. Miss St. Quentin walked beside him in silence, for a
time. When at last she spoke it was very gently.

" Please don't be angry with me," she pleaded. " I like
you so much that — that I'd give a great deal to be able to
think less of my duty to the tiresome woman in me."

" I would give a great deal too," he declared, regardless of
grammar.

" But I'm not the only woman in the world, dear Mr.
Quayle," she protested presently.

" But I, unfortunately, have no use for any other," he re-
turned.

''' Ah, you distress me ! " Honoria cried.

" Well, I don't know that you make me superabundantly
cheerful," he answered.

Just then the far-away shriek of a locomotive and dull
thunder of an approaching train was heard. Mr. Quayle
looked once more towards the western horizon.

" Here's the Paris-express ! " he said. " We must be off
if we mean to get round before our horse-box is shunted."

He jumped down on to the permanent way. Miss St.
Quentin followed him, and the two ran helter-skelter across
the many lines of metals, in the direction of the Culoz-
Geneva-Bale siding. That somewhat childish and undignified
proceeding ministered to the restoration of good fellowship.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 555

'^ Great passions are rare," Mr. Quayle said, laughing a
little. His circulation was agreeably quickened. How sur-
prisingly fast this nymph-like creature could get over the
ground, and that gracefully, moreover, rather in the style of a
lissome, long-limbed youth than in that of a woman.

" Rare ? I know it," she answered, the words coming short
and sharply. " But I accept the risk. A thousand to one
the book remains shut forever."

"And I, meanwhile, am not too proud to pass the time of
day with the second best, and take refuge in the accumulated
patience of innumerable asses."

And, behind them, the express train thundered into the
station.

CHAPTER II

TELLING HOW, ONCE AGAIN, KATHERINE CALMADY LOOKED ON

HER SON

I ^HE bulletin received at Turin was sufficiently disquieting.
Richard had had a relapse. And when at Bologna, just
as the train was starting. General Ormiston entered the com-
partment occupied by the two ladies, there was that in his
manner which made Miss St. Quentin lay aside the magazine
she was reading and, rising silently from her place opposite
Lady Calmady, go out on to the narrow passageway of the
long sleeping-car. She was very close to the elder woman in
the bonds of a dear and intimate friendship, yet hardly close
enough, so she judged, to intrude her presence if evil-tidings
were to be told. A man going into battle might look, so she
thought, as Roger Ormiston looked now — very stern and
strained. It was more fitting to leave the brother and sister
alone together for a little space.

At the far end of the passageway the servants were
grouped — Clara, comely of face and of person, neat notwith-
standing the demoralisation of feminine attire incident to pro-
longed travel. Winter, the Brockhurst butler, clean-shaven,
gray-headed, suggestive of a distinguished Anglican ecclesias-
tic in mufti. Miss St. Quentin's lady's-maid, Faulstich by

556 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

name, a North-Country woman, angular of person and of
bearing, loyal of heart. And Zimmermann, the colossal Ger-
man-Swiss courier, with his square, yellow beard and hair en
brosse. An air of discouragement pervaded the party, involv-
ing even the polyglot conductor of the waggon-lits^ a small,
quick, sandy-complexloned, young fellow of uncertain nation-
ality, with a gold band round his peaked cap. He respected
this family which could afford to take a private railway-car-
riage half across Europe. He shared their anxieties. And
these were evidently great. Clara wept. The old butler's
mouth twitched, and his slightly pendulous cheeks quivered.
The door at the extreme end of the car was set wide open.
Ludovic Quayle stood upon the little, iron balcony smoking.
His feet were planted far apart, yet his tall figure swayed and
curtseyed queerly as the heavy carriage bumped and rattled
across the points. High walls, overtopped by the dark spires
of cypresses, overhung by radiant wealth of lilac Wisteria,
and of roses red, yellow, and white, reeled away in the keen
sunshine to the left and right. Then, clearing the outskirts
of the town, the train roared southward across the fair, Italian
landscape beneath the pellucid, blue vault of the fair, Italian
sky. And to Honoria there was something of heartlessness
in all that fair outward prospect. Here, in Italy, the ancient
gods reigned still, surely, the gods who are careless of human
woe.

" Is there bad news. Winter ? " she asked.

" Mr. Bates telegraphs to the General that it would be well
her ladyship should be prepared for the worst."

" It'll kill my lady. For certain sure it will kill her ! She
never could be expected to stand up against that. And just
as she was getting round from her own illness so nicely
too "

Audibly Clara wept. Her tears so affected the sandy-com-
plexioned, polyglot conductor that he retired into his little
pantry and made a most unholy clattering among the plates
and knives and forks. Honoria put her hand upon the sob-
bing woman's shoulder and drev/ her into the comparative
privacy of the adjoining compartment, rendered not a little
inaccessible by a multiplicity of rugs, traveling-bags, and hand-
luggage.

" Come, sit down, Clara," she said. " Have your cry out.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 557

And then pull yourself together. Remember Lady Calmady
will want just all you can do for her if Sir Richard — if — and
Honoria was aware somehow of a sharp catch in her throat —
"if he does not live."

And, meanwhile, Roger Ormiston, now in sober and digni-
fied middle-age, found himself called upon to repeat that
rather sinister experience of his hot and rackety youth, and,
as he put it bitterly, " act hangman to his own sister." For,
as he approached her, Katherine, leaning back against the
piled-up cushions in the corner of the railway carriage, sud-
denly sat bolt-upright, stretching out her hands in swift fear
and entreaty, as in the state bedroom at Brockhurst nine-and-
twenty years ago.

" Oh, Roger, Roger ! " she cried, " tell me, what is it ? "

" Nothing final as yet, thank God," he answered. " But it
would be cruel to keep the truth from you, Kitty, and let you
buoy yourself up with false hopes."

" pie is worse," Katherine said.

" Yes, he is worse. He is a good deal weaker. Pm afraid
the state of affairs has become very grave. Evidently they
are apprehensive as to what turn the fever may take in the
course of the next twelve hours."

Katherine bowed herself together as though smitten by
sharp pain. Then she looked at him hurriedly, fresh alarms
assaulting her.

" You are not trying to soften the blow to me ? You are
not keeping anything back ? "

" No, no, no, my dear Kitty. There — see — read it for
yourself. I telegraphed twice, so as to have the latest news.
Here's the last reply."

Ormiston unfolded the blue paper, crossed by white strips
of printed matter, and laid it upon her lap. And as he did so
it struck him, aggravating his sense of sinister repetition, that
she had on the same rings and bracelets as on that former oc-
casion, and that she wore stone-gray silk too — a long travel-
ing sacque, lined and bordered with soft fur. It rustled as
she moved. A coif of black lace covered her upturned hair,
framed her sweet face, and was tied soberly under her chin.
And, looking upon her, Ormiston yearned in spirit over this
beautiful woman who had borne such grievous sorrows, and
who, as he feared, had sorrow yet more grievous still to bear.

558 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

— " For ten to one the boy won't pull through — he won't pull
through/* he said to himself. " Poor, dear fellow, he's noth-
ing left to fall back upon. He's lived too hard." And then
he took himself remorsefully to task, asking himself whether,
among the pleasures and ambitions and successes of his own
career, he had been quite faithful to the dead, and quite watch-
ful enough over the now dying, Richard Calmady ? He re-
proached himself, for, when Death stands at the gate, con-
science grows very sensitive regarding any lapses, real or
imagined, of duty towards those for whom that dread ambas-
sador waits.

Twice Katherine read the telegram, weighing each word of
it. Then she gave the blue paper back to her brother.

" I will ask you all to let me be alone for a little while,
dear Roger," she said. " Tell Honoria, tell Ludovic, tell my
good Clara. I must turn my face to the wall for a time, so
that, when I turn it upon you dear people again, it may not
be too unlovely."

And Ormiston bent his head and kissed her hand, and went
out, closing the door behind him — while the train roared south-
ward, through the afternoon sunshine, southward towards
Chiusi and Rome.

And Katherine Calmady sat quietly amid the noise and
violent, on-rushing movement, making up accounts with her
own motherhood. That she might never see Dickie again,
she herself dying, was an idea which had grown not unfamil-
iar to her during these last sad years. But that she should
survive, only to see Dickie dead, was a new idea and one
which joined hands with despair, since it constituted a con-
clusion big with the anguish of failure to the tragedy of their
relation, hers and his. Her whole sense of justice, of fitness,
rebelled under it, rebelled against it. She implored a space,
however brief, of reconciliation and reunion before the su-
preme farewell was said. But it had become natural to
Katherine's mind, so unsparingly self-trained in humble obe-
dience to the divine ordering, not to stay in the destructive,
but pass on to the constructive stage. She would not indulge
herself in rebellion, but rather fashion her thought without
delay to that which should make for inward peace. And so
now, turnmg her eyes, in thought, from the present, she went
back on the baby-love* the child-love which, notwithstanding

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 559

the abiding smart of Richard's deformity, had been so very
exquisite to her. Upon the happier side of all that she had
not dared to dwell during this prolonged period of estrange-
ment. It was too poignant, too deep-seated in the springs of
her physical being. To dwell on it enervated and unnerved
her. But now, Richard the grown man dying, she gave her-
self back to Richard the little child. It solaced her to do so.
Then he had been wholly hers. And he was wholly hers still,
in respect of that early time. The man she had lost — so it
seemed, how far through fault of her own she could not tell.
And just now she refused to analyse all that. Upon all which
strengthened endurance, upon gracious memories engendering
thankfulness, could her mind alone profitably be fixed. And
so, as the train roared southward, and the sun declined and the
swift dusk spread its mantle over the face of the classic land-
scape, Katherine cradled a phantom baby on her knee, and sat
in the oriel window of the Chapel-Room, at Brockhurst, with
the phantom of her boy beside her, while she told him old-
time legends of war, and of high endeavour, and of gallant
adventure, watching the light dance in his eyes as her words
awoke in him emulation of those masters of noble deeds
whose exploits she recounted. And in this she found com-
fort, and a chastened calm. So that, when at length General
Ormiston — incited thereto by the faithful Clara, who protested
that her ladyship must and should dine — returned to her, he
found her storm-tossed no longer, but tranquil in expression
and solicitous for the comfort of others. She had conquered
nature by grace — conquered, in that she had compelled her-
self to unqualified submission. If this cup might not pass
from her, still would she praise Almighty God and bless His
Holy Name, asking not that her own, but His will, be done.

It followed that the evening, spent in that strangely noisy,
oscillating, onward-rushing dwelling-place of a railway-car-
riage, was not without a certain subdued brightness of inter-
course and conversation. Katherine was neither preoccupied
nor distrait, or unamused even by the small accidents and ab-
surdities of travel. Later, while preparations were being
made by the servants for the coming night, she went out,
with the two gentlemen and Honoria St. Quentin, on to the
iron platform at the rear of the swaying car, and stood there
under the stars. The mystery of these last, and of the dimly

56o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

discerned and sleeping land, offered penetrating contrast to the
sleeplessness of the hurrying train with its long, sinuous line
of lighted windows, and to the sleeplessness of her own heart.
The fret of human life is but as a little island in the great
ocean of eternal peace — so she told herself — and then bade
that sleepless heart of hers both still its passionate beating and
take courage. And when, at length, she was alone, and lay
down in her narrow berth, peace and thankfulness remained
with Katherine. The care and affection of brother, friends,
and servants, was very grateful to her, so that she composed
herself to rest, whether slumber was granted her or not.
The event was in the hands of God — that surely was enough.

And in the dawn, reaching Rome, the news was so far bet-
ter that it was not worse. Richard lived. And when, some
seven hours later, the train steamed into Naples station, and
Bates, the house-steward — the marks of haste and keen anx-
iety upon him — pushed his way up to the carriage door, he
could report there was this amount of hope even yet, that
Richard still lived, though his strength was as that of an infant
and whether it would wax or wane wholly none as yet could
say.

" Then we are in time. Bates ? " Lady Calmady had asked,
desiring further assurance.

" I hope so, my lady. But I would advise your coming as
quickly as possible."

^' Is he conscious ? "

" He knew Captain Vanstone this morning, my lady, just
before I left."

The man-servant shouldered the crowd aside unceremo-
niously, so as to force a passage for Lady Calmady.

" Her ladyship should go up to the villa at once, sir," he
said to General Ormiston. " I had better accompany her. I
will leave Andrews to make all arrangements here. The car-
riage is waiting."

Then, Honoria beside her, Katherine was aware of the hot
glare and hard shadow, the grind and clatter, the violent
colour, the strident vivacity of the Neapolitan streets, as with
voice and whip, Garcia sprung the handsome, long-tailed,
black horses up the steep ascent. This, followed by the im-
pression of a cool, spacious, and lofty interior, of mild-dif-
fused light, of pale, marble floors and stairways, of rich hang-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 561

ings and distinguished objects of art, of the soft, green gloom
of ilex and myrtle, the languid drip of fountains. And this
last served to mark, as with raised finger, the hush, — bland,
yet very imperative — which held all the place. After the cease-
less jar and tumult of that many-days' journey, here, up at the
villa, it seemed as though urgency were absurd, hot haste of
affection a little vulgar, a little contemptible, all was so com-
posed, so urbane.

And that urbanity, so bland, so, in a way, supercilious,
affected Honoria St. Quentin unpleasantly. She was taken
with unreasoning dislike of the place, finding something
malign^ trenchmg on cruelty even, in its exalted serenity, its
unchanging, inaccessible, mask-like smile. Very certainly the
ancient gods held court here yet, the gods who are careless of
human tears, heedless of human woe ! And she looked anx-
iously at Lady Calmady, penetrated by fear that the latter was
about to be exposed to some insidious danger, to come into
conflict with influences antagonistic and subtly evil. Wicked
deeds had been committed in this fair place, wicked designs
nourished and brought to fruition here. She was convinced
of that. Was convinced further that those designs had con-
nection with and had been directed against Lady Calmady.
The thought of Helen de Vallorbes, exquisite and vicious, —
as she now reluctantly admitted her to be, — was very present
to her. As far as she knew, it was quite a number of years
since Helen had set foot in the villa. Yet it spoke of her,
spoke of the mqre dangerous aspects of her nature. — Honoria
sighed over her friend. Helen had gone, latterly, very much
to the bad, she feared. And as all this passed rapidly through
her mind it aroused all her knight-errantry, raising a strongly
protective spirit in her. She questioned just how much active
care she might take of Lady Calmady without indiscretion of
over-forwardness.

But even while she thus debated, opportunity of action was
lost. Quietly, a great simplicity and singleness of purpose in
her demeanour, without word spoken, without looking back,
Katherme followed the house-steward across the cool, spacious
hall, through a doorway and out of sight

And that singleness of purpose, so discernible in her out-
ward demeanour, possessed Katherine's being throughout.
She was as one who walks in sleep, pushed by blind impulse.

562 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

She was not conscious of herself, not conscious of joy or fear,
or any emotion. She moved forward dumbly, and without
volition, towards the event. Her senses were confused by
this transition to stillness from noise, by the immobility of all
surrounding objects after the reeling landscape on either hand
the swaying train, by the bland and tempered light after the
harsh contrasts of glare and darkness so constantly offered to
her vision of late. She was dazed and faint, moreover, so
that her knees trembled, her sensibility, her powers of realisa-
tion and of sympathy, for the time being, atrophied.

The house-steward ushered her into a large, square room.
The low, darkly-painted, vaulted ceiling of it produced a
cavernous effect. An orderly disorder prevailed, and a some-
what mournful dimness of closed, green-slatted shutters and
half-drawn curtains. The furniture, costly in fact, but
dwarfed, in some cases actually legless, was ranged against the
squat, carven bookcases that lined the walls, leaving the mid-
dle of the room vacant save for a low, narrow camp-bed.
The bed stood at right angles to the door by which Katherine
entered, the head of it towards the shuttered, heavily-draped
windows, the foot towards the inside wall of the room. At
the bedside a man knelt on one knee, and his appearance
aroused. In a degree, Katherine's dormant powers of observa-
tion. He had a short, crisp, black beard and crisp, black
hair. He was alert and energetic of face and figure, a man
of dare-devil, humorous, yet kindly eyes. He wore a blue
serge suit with brass buttons to it. He was in his stocking-
feet. The wristbands and turn-down collar of his white shirt
were immaculate. Katherine, lost, trembling, the support of
the habitual taken from her, a stranger in a strange land, liked
the man. He appeared so admirable an example of physical
health. He inspired her with confidence, his presence seem-
ing to carry with it assurance of that which is wholesome,
normal, and sane. He glanced at her sharply, not without
hint of criticism and of command. Authoritatively he signed
to her to remain silent, to stand at the head of the bed, and
well clear of it, out of sight. Katherine did not resent this.
She obeyed.

And standing thus, rallying her will to conscious eflx)rt, she
looked steadily, for the first time, at the bed and that which
lay upon it. And so domg she could hardly save herself from

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 563

falling, since she saw there precisely that which the shape of
the room and the disarray of it, along with vacant space and
the low camp-bed in the centre of that space, had foretold —
for all her dumbness of feeling, deadness of sympathy — she
must assuredly see. — All these last four-and-twenty hours she
had solaced herself with the phantom society of Dickie the
baby-child, of Dickie the eager boy, curious of many things,
But here was one different from both these. Different, too,
from the young man, tremendous in arrogance, and in revolt
against the indignity put on him by fate, from whom she had
parted in such anguish of spirit nearly five years back. For^
in good truth, she saw now, not Richard Calmady her son, hei
anxious charge, whose debtor — in that she had brought him
into life disabled — she held herself eternally to be, but Rich^
ard Calmady her husband, the desire of her eyes, the glory oi
her youth — saw him, worn by suffering, disfigured by unsightly
growth of beard, pallid, racked by mortal weakness, the sheet
expressing the broad curve of his chest, the sheet and light
blanket disclosing the fact of that hideous maiming he had
sustained — saw him now as on the night he died.

Captain Vanstone, meanwhile reassured as to the new-
comer's discretion and docility, applied his mind to hiv
patient.

" See here, sir," he said, banteringly yet tenderly, " w^
were just getting along first-rate with these uncommonly
mixed liquors. You mustn't cry off again. Sir Richard."

He slipped his arm under the pillows, dexterously raising
the young man's head, and held the cup to his lips.

" My dear good fellow, I wish you would let me be," Dickie
murmured.

He spoke courteously, yet there were tears in his voice for
very weakness. And, hearing him, it was as though some-
thing stirred within Katherine which had long been bound by
bitterness of heavy frost.

Vanstone shook his head. — "Very sorry, Sir Richard,"
he replied. " Daren't let you off. I've got my orders, you
see."

The bold and kindly eyes had a certain n.agnetic efficacy
of compulsion in them. The sick man drank, swallowed
with difl[iculty, yet drank again. Then he lay back, for a
while^ his eyes closed, resting. And Katherine stood at the

564 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

head of the bed, out of sight, waiting till her time should
come. She folded her hands high upon her bosom. Her
thought remained inarticulate, yet she began to understand
that which she had striven so sternly to uproot, that which she
had supposed she had extirpated, still remained with her..
Once more, with a terror of joyful amazement, she began to
scale the height and sound the depth of human love.

Presently the voice — whether that of husband or of son
she did not stay to discriminate — it gripped her very vitals
— reached her from the bed. She fancied it rang a little
stronger.

" It is contemptibly futile, and therefore conspicuously in
keeping with the rest, to have taken all this trouble about dy-
ing only, in the end, to sneak back."

" Oh ! well, sir, after all you're not so very far on the re-
turn voyage yet ! '* Vanstone put in consolingly.

Richard opened his eyes. Katherine's vision was blurred.
She could not sec very clearly, but she fancied he smiled.

"Yes, with luck, I may still give you all the slip," he said.

" Now, a little more, sir, please. Yes, you can if you try."

" But I tell you I don't care about this business of sneak-
ing back. I don't want to live."

" Very likely not. But I'm very much mistaken if you
want to die, like a cat in a cupboard, here ashore. Mend
enough to get away on board the yacht to sea. There'll be
time enough then to argue the question out, sir. Half a mile
of blue water under your feet sends up the value of life most
considerably."

As he spoke the sailor looked at Katherine Calmady. His
glance enjoined caution, yet conveyed encouragement.

" Here, take down the rest of it. Sir Richard," he said per-
suasively. " Then I swear I won't plague you any more for
a good hour."

Again he raised the sick man dexterously, and as he did so
Katherine observed that a purple scar, as of a but newly healed
wound, ran right across Dickie's cheek from below the left
eye to the turn of the lower jaw. And the sight of It moved
her strangely, loosening that last binding as of frost. A swift
madness of anger against whoso had inflicted that ugly hurt
arose in Katherine, while her studied resignation, her strained
passivity of mental attitude, went down before a passion of

THE NEW HEAVEN ANt3 NEW EARTH 565

fierce and primitive emotion. The spirit of battle became
dominant in her along with an immense necessity of loving
and of being loved. Tender phantoms of past joy ceased to
solace. The actual, the concrete, the immediate, compelled
her with a certain splendour of demand. Katherine appeared
to grow taller, more regal of presence. The noble energy of
youth and its limitless generosity returned to her. Instinc-
tively she unfastened her pelisse at the throat, took the lace
coif from her head, letting it fall to the ground, and moved
nearer.

Richard pushed the cup away from his lips.

"There's some one in the room, Vanstone ! " he said, his
voice harsh with anger. "Some woman — I heard her dress.
I told you all — whatever happened^ — I would have no woman
here."

But Katherine, undismayed, came straight on to the bed-
side. She loved. She would not be gainsaid. With the
whole force of her nature she refused denial of that love. — ■
For a brief space Richard looked at her, his face ghastly and
rigid as that of a corpse. Then he raised himself in the bed,
stretching out both arms, with a hoarse cry that tore at his
throat and shuddered through all his frame. And, as he would
have fallen forward, exhausted by the effort to reach her and
the lovely shelter of her, Katherine caught and, kneeling, held
him, his poor hands clutching impotently at her shoulders, his
head sinking upon her breast. While, in that embrace, not
only all the motherhood in her leapt up to claim the sonship
in him, but all the womanhood in her leapt up to claim the
manhood in him, thereby making the broken circle of her
being once more wholly perfect and complete, so that carrying
the whole dear burden of his fever-wasted body in her encir-
cling arms and upon her breast, even as she had carried, long
since, that dear fruit of love, the unborn babe, within her
womb, Katherine was taken with a very ecstasy and rapture
of content.

" My beloved is mine — is mine ! " she cried, — " and I am
his."

Captain Vanstone was on his feet and half-way across the
>om.

" Man alive, but it hurts like merry hell ! " he said, as he
softly closed the door.

566 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

CHAPTER III

CONCERNING A SPIRIT IN PRISON

TTPON those moments of rapture followed days of trem*
^ bling, during which the sands of Richard Calmady's
life ran very low, and his brain wandered in delirium, and he
spoke unwittingly of many matters of which it was unprofit-
able to hear. Periods of unconsciousness, when he lay as
one dead ; periods of incessant utterance — now violent in un-
availing repudiation, now harsh with unavailing remorse —
alternated. And, at this juncture, much of Lady Calmady's
former very valiant pride asserted itself. In tender jealousy
for the honour of her beloved one she shut the door of that
sick-room, of sinister aspect, against brother and friend, and
even against the faithful Clara. None should see or hear
Richard in his present alienation and abjection, save herself
and those who had hitherto ministered to him. He should re-
gain a measure, at least, of his old distinction and beauty be-
fore any, beyond these, looked on his face. And so his own
men-servants — Captain Vanstone, capable, humorous, and
alert — and Price, the red-headed, Welsh first-mate, of varied
and voluminous gift of invective — continued to nurse him.
These men loved him. They would be loyal in silence,
since, whatever his lapses, Dickie was and always had been —
as Katherine reflected — among the number of those happily-
endowed persons who triumphantly give the lie to the cynical
saying that " no man is a hero to his valet de chamhre'^

To herself Katherine reserved the right to enter that sin-
ister sick-room whenever she pleased, and to sit by the bedside,
waiting for the moment — should it ever come — when Richard
would again recognise her, and give himself to her again.
And those vigils proved a searching enough experience, not-
withstanding her long apprenticeship to service of sorrow —
which was also the service of her son. For, in the mental
and moral nudity of delirium, he made strange revelation,
not only of acts committed, but of inherent tendencies of

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 567

character and of thought. He spoke, with bewildering in-
consequence and intimacy, of incidents and of persons with
whom she was unacquainted, causing her to follow him — a
rather brutal pilgrimage — into regions where the feet of
women, bred and i^urtured like herself, but seldom tread. He
spoke of persons with whom she was well acquainted also,
and whose names arrested her attention with pathetic signifi-
cance, offering, for the moment, secure standing ground amid
the shifting quicksand of his but half-comprehended words.
He spoke of Morabita, the famous prima donna^ and of gentle
Mrs. Chifney down at the Brockhurst racing-stables. He
grew heated in discussion with Lord Fallowfeild. He petted
little Lady Constance Quayle. He called Camp, coaxed and
chaffed the dog merrily — whereat Lady Calmady rose from
her place by the bedside and stood at one of the dim, shut-
tered windows for a while. He spoke of places, too, and of
happenings in them, from Westchurch to Constantinople,
from a nautch at Singapore to a country fair at Farley Row.
But, recurrent through all his wanderings, were allusions, un-
sparing in revolt and in self-abasement, to a woman whom he
had loved and who had dealt very vilely with him, putting
some unpardonable shame upon him, and to a man whom he
himself had very basely wronged. The name, neither of man
nor woman, did Katherine learn. — Madame de Vallorbes'
name, for which she could not but listen, he never mentioned,
nor did he mention her own. — And recurrent, also, running
as a black thread through all his speech, was lament, not un-
manly but very terrible to hear — the lament of a creature,
captive, maimed, imprisoned, perpetually striving, perpetually
frustrated in the effort, to escape. And, noting all this,
Katherine not only divined very dark and evil pages in the
history of her beloved one, but a struggle so continuous and a
sorrow so abiding that, in her estimation at all events, they
cancelled and expiated the darkness and evil of those same
pages. While the mystery, both of wrong done and sorrow
suffered, so wrought upon her that, having, in the first ec-
stasy of recovered human love, deserted and depreciated the
godward love a little, she now ran back imploring assurance
and renewal of that last, in all penitence and. humility, lest,
deprived of the counsel and sure support of it, she should fail
to read the present and deal with the future aright — if, indeed.

568 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

any future still remained for that beloved one other than the
yawning void of death and inscrutable silence of the grave !

The better part of a week passed thus, and then, one fair
morning, Winter, bringing her breakfast to the anteroom of
that same sea-blue, sea-green bedchamber — sometime tenanted
by Helen de Vallorbes — disclosed a beaming countenance.

''Mr. Powell wishes me to inform your ladyship that Sir
Richard has passed a very good night. He has come to him-
self, my lady, and has asked for you."

The butler's hands shook as he set down the tray.

" I hope your ladyship will take something to eat before
you go down-stairs," he added. " Mr. Powell told Sir Rich-
ard that it was still early, and he desired that on no consider-
ation should you be hurried."

Which little word of thoughtfulness on Dickie's part
brought a roundness to Katherine's cheek and a soft shining
into her sweet eyes, so that Honoria St. Quentin, sauntering
into the room just then with her habitual lazy grace, stood still
a moment in pleased surprise, noting the change in her friend's
appearance.

" Why, dear Cousin Katherine," she asked, " what's hap-
pened ? All's right with the world ! "

" Yes," Katherine answered. " God's very much in His
heaven, to-day, and all's right with all the world, because
things are a little more right with one man in it. — That is the
woman's creed — always has been, I suppose, and I rather hope
always will be. It is frankly personal and individualistic, I
know. Possibly it is contemptibly narrow-minded. Still I
doubt if she will readily find another one which makes for
greater happiness or fulness of life. You don't agree, dearest,
I know — nevertheless pour out my tea for me, will you ? I
want to dispose of this necessary evil of breakfast with all
possible despatch. Richard has sent for me. He has slept
and is awake."

And as Miss St. Quentin served her dear friend, she
pondered this speech curiously, saying to herself: — "Yes, I
did right, though I never liked Ludovic Quayle better than
now, and never liked any other man as well as I like Ludovic
Quayle. But that's not enough. I'm getting hold of the
appearance of the thing, but 1 haven't got hold of the thing
itself. And so the woman in me must continue to be kept in

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 569

::he back attic. She shall be denied all further development.
She shall have nothing unless she can have the whole of ity
and repeat Cousin Katherine's creed from her heart."

Richard did not speak when Lady Calmady crossed the
room and sat down at the bedside. He barely raised his eye-
lids. But he felt out for her hand across the surface of the
sheet. And she took the proffered hand in both hers and fell
to stroking the palm of it with her finger-tips. And this
silent greeting, and confiding contact of hand with hand, was
to her exquisitely healing. It gave an assurance of nearness
and acknowledged ownership, more satisfying and convincing,
than many eloquent phrases of welcome. And so she, too^
remained silent, only indeed permitting herself, for a little
while, to look at him, lest so doing she should make further
demand upon his poor quantity of strength. A folding screen
in stamped leather, of which age had tempered the ruby and
gold to a sober harmony of tone, had been placed round the
head of the bed, throwing this last into clear, quiet shadow.
The bed linen was fresh and smooth. Richard had made a
little toilet. His silk shirt, open at the throat, was also fresh
and smooth. He was clean shaven, his hair cropped into that
closely-fitting, bright-brown cap of curls. Katherine per-
ceived that his beauty had begun to return to him, though his
face was distressingly worn and emaciated, and the longy
purplish line of that unexplained scar still disfigured his cheek.
His hands were little more than skin and bone. Indeed, he
was fragile, she feared, as any person could be who yet had
life in him, and she wondered, rather fearfully, if it was yet
possible to build up that life again into any joy of energy^
and of activity. But she put such fears from her as un-
worthy. For were they not together, he and she, actually and
consciously reunited ? That was sufficient. The rest could
wait.

And to-day, as though lending encouragement to gracious
hopes, the usually gloomy and cavernous room had taken to
itself a quite generous plenishing of air and light. The
heavy curtains were drawn aside. The casements of one of
the square, squat windows were thrown widely open. The
slatted shutters without were partially opened likewise. A
shaft of strong sunshine slanted in and lay, like a bright high-
way, across the rich colours of the Persian carpet. The air

570 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

was hot but nimble, and of a vivacious and stimulating
quality. It fluttered some loose papers on the vi^riting-table
near the open window. It fluttered the delicate laces and fine
muslin frills of Lady Calmady's morning-gown. There u»as
a sprightly mirthfulness in the touch of it, not unpleasing to
iher. For it seemed to speak of the ever-obtaining youth, the
incalculable power of recuperation, the immense reconstruc-
tive energy resident in nature and the physical domain. And
there was comfort in that thought. She turned her eyes from
the bed and its somewhat sorrowful burden — the handsome
head, the broad, though angular, shoulders, the face, immobile
and mask-like, with closed eyelids and unsmiling lips, reposing
upon the whiteness of the pillows — and fixed them upon that
radiant space of outer world visible between the dark-fra-
ming of the half-open shutters. Beyond the dazzling, black-
and-white chequer of the terrace and balustrade, they rested
on the cool green of the formal garden, the glistering dome
and slender columns of the pavilion set in the angle of the
terminal wall. — And this last reminded her quaintly of that
other pavilion, embroidered, with industry of innumerable
stitches, upon the curtains of the state bed at home — that
pavilion, set for rest and refreshment in the midst of the
tangled ways of the Forest of This Life, where the Hart may
breathe in security, fearless of Care, the pursuing Leopard,
which follows all too close behind. — Owing to her position
and the sharp drop of the hillside, Naples itself, the great
painted city, its fine buildings and crowded shipping, was un-
seen. But, far away, the lofty promontory of Sorrento
sketched itself in palest lilac upon the azure of the sea and
sky.

And, as Katherine reasoned, if this fair prospect, after so
many ages of tumultuous history and the shock of calamitous
events, after battle, famine, terror of earthquake and fire,
devastation by foul disease, could still recover and present
such an effect of triumphant youthfulness, such, at once
august and mirthful, charm, might not her beloved one, lying
here broken in health and in spirit, likewise regain the glory
of his manhood and the delight of it, notwithstanding present
weakness and mournful eclipse ? — Yes, it would come right —
come right — Katherine told herself, thereby making one of
those magnificent acts of faith which go so far to produce

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 571

just that which they prophesy. God could not have created
so complex and beautiful a creature, and permitted it so to
suffer, save to the fulfilment of some clear purpose which
would very surely be made manifest at last. God Almighty
should be justified of His strange handiwork ; and she of her
love before the whole of the story was told. — And, stirred by
these thoughts, and by the fervour of her own pious con-
fidence, Katherine's finger-tips traveled more rapidly over the
palm of that outstretched and passive hand. Then, on a
sudden, she became aware that Richard was looking fixedly
at her. She turned her head proudly, the exaltation of a living
faith very present in her smile.

" You are the same," he said slowly. His voice was low^
toneless, and singularly devoid of emotion. — " Deliciously the
same. You are just as lovely. You still have your pretty
colour. You are hardly a day older "

He paused, still regarding her fixedly.

" I'm glad you have got on one of those white, frilly things
you used to wear. I always liked them."

Katherine could not speak just then. This sudden and
complete intimacy unnerved her. It was so long since any
one had spoken to her thus. It was very dear to her, yet
the toneless voice gave a strange unreality to the tender words.

" It's a matter for congratulation that you are the same,'*'
Richard went on, " since everything else, it appears, is
destined to continue the same. One should have one thing it
is agreeable to contemplate in that connection, considering the
vast number of things altogether the reverse of agreeable
which one fondly hoped one was rid of forever, and whicb
intrude themselves."

He shifted himself feebly on the pillows, and the flicker of
a smile crossed his face.

" Poor, dear mother," he said, " you see again, without de-
lay, the old bad habit of grumblmg ! "

" Grumble on, grumble on, my best beloved," Katherine
murmured, while her finger-tips traveled softly over his palm*

" Verily and indeed, you are the same ! " Richard rejoined.
Once more he lay looking full at her, until she became almost
abashed by that unswerving scrutiny. It came over her that
the plane of their relation had changed. Richard was, as
never heretofore, her equal, a man grown^

572 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Suddenly he spoke.

" Can you forgive me ? "

And so far had Katherine's thought journeyed from the
past, so absorbed was it in the present, that she answered, sur-
prised : —

" My dearest, forgive what ? "

"Injustice, ingratitude, desertion," Richard said, "neglect,
systematic cruelty. There is plenty to swell the list. All I
boasted I would do I have done — and more." — His voice,
until now so even and emotionless, faltered a little. " I have
sinned against heaven and before thee, and am no more
worthy to be called thy son."

Katherine's hand closed down on his firmly.

" All that, as far as I am concerned, is as though it was not
and never had been," she answered. — " So much for judg-
ment on earth, dearest. — While in heaven, thank God, we
know there is more joy over the one sinner who repents than
over the ninety-and-nine just persons who need no repent-

ance."

u

And you really believe that ? " Richard said, speaking half
indulgently, half ironically, as if to a child.

" Assuredly, I believe it."

" But supposing the sinner is not repentant, but merely
cowed ? " — Richard straightened his head on the pillows and
closed his eyes. '^ You gave me leave to grumble — well,
then, I am so horribly disappointed. Here have life and
death been sitting on either side of me for the past month, and
throwing with dice for me. I saw them as plainly as I can
see you. The queer thing was they were exactly alike, yet I
knew them apart from the first. Day and night I heard the
rattle of the dice — it became hideously monotonous — and felt
the mouth of the dice-box on my chest when they threw. I
backed death heavily. It seemed to me there were ways of
loading the dice. I loaded them. But it wasn't to be,
mother. Life always threw the highest numbers — and life
had the last throw."

" I praise God for that," Katherine said, very softly.

" I don't, unfortunately," he answered. " I hoped for a
neat little execution — a little pain, perhaps, a little shedding
of blood, without which there is no remission of sins — but I
suppose that would have been letting me off too easy."

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 57J

He drew away his hand and covered his eyes.

'' When I had seen you I seemed to have made my final",
peace. I understood why I had been kept waiting till then.
Having seen you, I flattered myself I might decently get free-
Ht last. But I am branded afresh, that's all, and sent back to
the galleys.*'

Lady Calmady's eyes sought the radiant prospect — the
green of the garden, the slender columns of the airy pavilion,,
the lilac land set in the azure of sea and sky. No words of
hers could give comfort as yet, so she would remain silent..
Her trust was in the amiable ministry of time, which may^
bring solace to the tormented, human soul, even as it reclothes^
^e mountainside swept by the lava stream, or cleanses and
■fenders gladly habitable the plague devastated city.

But there was a movement upon the bed. Richard had
turned on his side. He had recovered his self-control, and
once more looked fixedly at her.

" Mother," he said calmly, " is your love great enough to
take me back, and give yourself to me again, though I am not
fit so much as to kiss the hem of your garment ? "

"There is neither giving nor taking, mv beloved," she
answered, smiling upon him. "In the truth of things, you
have never left me, neither have I ever let you go."

" Ah ! but consider these last four years and their record ! '*
he rejoined. " I am not the same man that I was. There's
no getting away from fact, from deeds actually done, or words:
actually said, for that matter. I have kept my singularly re-
pulsive infirmity of body, and to it I have added a mind fester-
mg with foul memories. I have been a brute to you, a traitor
to a friend who trusted me. I have been a sensualist, an
adulterer. And I am hopelessly broken in pride and self-
respect. The conceit, the pluck even, has been licked right
out of me." — Richard paused, steadying his voice which
faltered again. — " I only want, since it seems Tve got to go
on living, to slink away somewhere out of sight, and hide my-
self and my wretchedness and shame from every one I know.
— Can you bear with me, soured and invalided as I am,,
mother .? Can you put up with my temper, and my silence,,,
and my grumbling, useless log as I must continue to be ? "

"Yes — everlastingly yes," Katherine answered.

Richard threw himself flat on his back again.

574 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"Ah ! how I hate myself — my God, how I hate myself! *'
he exclaimed.

" And how beyond all worlds I love you," Katherine put
in quietly.

He felt out for her hand across the sheet, found and held
it. There were footsteps upon the terrace to the right, the
scent of a cigar, Ludovic Quayle's voice in question, Honoria
St. Quentin's in answer, both with enforced discretion and
lowness of tone. General Ormiston joined them. Miss St.
Quentin laughed gently. The sound was musicial and sweet.
Footsteps and voices died away. A clang of bells and the
hooting of an outward-bound liner came up from the city and
the port.

Richard's calm had returned. His expression had softened.

"Will those two marry? " he asked presently.

Lady Calmady paused before speaking.

" I hope so — for Ludovic's sake," she said. " He has
served, if not quite Jacob's seven years, yet a full five for his
love."

" If for Ludovic's sake, why not for hers ? " Dickie asked.

" Because two halves don't always make a whole in mar-
riage," Katherine said.

" You are as great an idealist as ever ! " — He paused, then
raised himself, sitting upright, speaking with a certain passion.

" Mother, will you take me away, away from every one, at
once, just as soon as possible ? I never want to see this
room, or this house, or Naples again. The climax was
reached here of disillusion, and of iniquity, and of degradation.
Don't ask what it was. I couldn't tell you. And, merci-
fully, only one person, whose lips are sealed in self-defense,
knows exactly what took place besides myself. But I want
to get away, away alone with you, who are perfectly unsullied
and compassionate, and who have forgiven me, and who still
can love. Will you come? Will you take me? The yacht
is all ready for sea."

" Yes," Katherine said.

" I asked this morning who was here with you, and Powell
told me. I can't see them, mother, simply I can't ! I
haven't the nerve. I haven't the face. Can you send them
away ? "

*•' Yes," Katherine said.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 575

Richard's eyes had grown dangerously bright, A spot of
colour burned on either cheek. Katherine leaned over him.

" My dearest," she declared, "you have talked enough."

"Yes, they're beginning to play again, I can hear the rattle
of the dice. — Mother take me aw^ay, take me out to sea, away
from this dreadful place. — Ah ! you poor darling, how horribly
selfish I am! — But let me get out to sea, and then later, take
me home — to Brockhurst. The house is big. Nobody need
see me."

" No, no," Katherine said, laying him back with tender
force upon the pillows. — " No one has seen you, no one shall
see you. We will be alone, you and I, just as long as you.
wish. With me, my beloved, you are very safe."

CHAPTER IV

DEALING WITH MATTERS OF HEARSAY AND MATTERS OF

SPORT

/^NE raw, foggy evening, early in the following December,,
the house at Newlands presented an unusually animated
scene. On the gravel of the carriage-sweep, without, grooms
walked breathed and sweating horses — the steam from whose
bodies and nostrils showed white in the chill dusk — slowly up
and down. In the hall, within, a number of gentlemen, more
or less mud-bespattered, regaled themselves with cheerful con-
versation, with strong waters of unexceptionable quality, and
with their host, Mr. Cathcart's very excellent cigars. They
moved stiffly and stood in attitudes more professional than
elegant. The long, clear-coloured drawing-room beyond
offered a perspective of much amiable comfort. The glazed
surfaces of its flowery-patterned chintzes gave back the bright-
ness of candles and shaded lamps, while drawn curtains shut
out the somewhat mournful prospect of sodden garden, bare,
trees, and gray, enshrouding mist. At the tea-table, large,,
mild, reposeful, clothed in wealth of black silk and black lace,,
was Mrs. Cathcart. Lord Fallowfeild, his handsome, infantile-
countenance beaming with good-nature and good-health above
his blue-and- white, bird's-eye stock and scarlet hunting-coat,,

576 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

sat by her discoursing with great affability and at great length.
Mary Ormiston stood near them, an expression of kindly
diversion upon her face. Her figure had grown somewhat
matronly in these days, and there were lines in her forehead
and about the corners of her rather large mouth, but her crisp
hair was still untouched by gray, her bright, gipsy-like com-
plexion had retained its freshness, she possessed the same
effect of wholesomeness and good sense as of old, while her
honest, brown eyes were soft with satisfied mother-love as
they met those of the slender, black-headed boy at her side. —
Godfrey Ormiston was in his second term at Eton, and had
come to Newlands to-day for his exeat. — The little party was

vcompleted by Lord Shotover, who stood before the fire warm-
ing that part of his person which by the lay mind, unversed in
such mysteries, might have been judged to be already more
than sufficiently warmed by the saddle, his feet planted far

'apart and a long glass of brandy and soda in his hand. For
this last he had offered good-tempered apology.

" I know Tve no business to bring it in here, Mrs. Cath-
cart," he said, '' and make your drawing-room smell like a
pot-house. But, you see, there was a positive stampede for

^the hearth-rug in the hall. A modest man, such as myself,
hadn't a chance. There's a regular rampart, half the county
in fact, before that fire. So I thought I'd just slope in here,
don't you know ? It looked awfully warm and inviting. And
then I wanted to pay my respects to Mrs. Ormiston too, and
talk to this young chap about Eton in peace."

Whereat Godfrey flushed up to the roots of his hair, being
very sensibly exalted. Since what young male creature who
knew anything really worth knowing — that was Godfrey's
way of putting it at least — did not know that Lord Shotover
had been a mighty sportsman from his youth up, and upon a
certain famous occasion had won the Grand National on his
own horse ?

'^ Only tea for me, Mrs. Cathcart," Lord Fallowfeild was
saying. " Capital thing tea. Never touch spirits in the day-
time and never have. No reflection upon other men's habits."

He turned an admiring, fatherly glance upon the tall, well-
made Shotover. — " Other men know their own business best.

JVlways have been a great advocate for believing every man

^nows his own business best. Still stick to my own habits.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 577

Like to be consistent. Very steadying, sobering thing to be
consistent, very strengthening to the character. Always have
told all my children that. As you begin, so you shall go on.
Always have tried to begin as I was going on. Haven't
always succeeded, but have made an honest eiFort. And it is
something, you know, to make an honest effort. Try to
bear that in mind, you young gentleman," — this, genially, to
Godfrey Ormiston. " Not half a bad rule to start in life with,
to go on as you begin, you know."

" Always provided you start right, you know, my dear fel-
low," Shotover observed, patting the boy's shoulder with his
disengaged hand, and looking at the boy's mother with a
humorous suggestion of self-depreciation. Now, as formerly,
he entertained the very friendliest sentiments towards all good
women, yet maintained an expensively extensive acquaintance
with women to whom that adjective is not generically applica-
ble.

But Lord Fallowfeild was fairly under weigh. Words
flowed from him, careless of comment or of interruption. He
was innocently and conspicuously happy. He had enjoyed a
fine day's sport in company with his favourite son, whose
financial embarrassments were not, it may be added, just now
in a critical condition. And then, access of material prosperity
had recently come to Lord Fallowfeild in the shape of a con-
siderable coal-producing property in the North of Midland-
shire. The income derived from this — amounting to from
ten to twelve thousand a year — was payable to him during his
lifetime, with remainder, on trust, in equal shares to all his
children. There were good horses in the Whitney stables
now, and no question of making shift to let the house in Bel-
grave Square for the season, while the amiable nobleman's
banking-account showed a far from despicable balance. And
consciousness of this last fact formed an agreeable undercur-
rent to his every thought. Therefore was he even more than
usually garrulous according to his own kindly and innocent
fashion.

" Very hospitable and friendly of you and Cathcart, to be
sure," he continued, "to throw open your house in this way.
Kindness alike to man and beast, man and beast, for which my
son and I are naturally very grateful."

Lord Shotover looked at Mary again, smiling. — "Little

578 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

mixed that statement, isn't it," he said, " unless we take for
granted that Pm the beast ? "

*^ I was a good deal perplexed, I own, Mrs. Cathcart, as to
how we should get home without giving the horses a rest and
having them gruelled. Fourteen miles "

"A precious long fourteen too," put in Shotover.

*' So it is," his father agreed, " a long fourteen. And my
horse was pumped, regularly pumped. I can't bear to see a
horse as done as that. It distresses me, downright distresses
me. Hate to over-press a horse. Hate to over-press any-
thing that can't stand up to you and take its revenge on you.
Always feel ashamed of myself if I've over-pressed a horse*
But I hadn't reckoned on the distance."

'^ 'The pace was too hot to inquire,' " quoted Shotover.

" So it was. Meeting at Grimshott, you see, we very
rarely kill so far on this side of the country."

" Breaking just where he did, I'd have bet on that fox
doubling back under Talepenny wood and making across the
vale for the earths in the big Brockhurst warren,^' Lord Shot-
over declared.

" Would you, though ? " said his father. " Very reasonable
forecast, very reasonable, indeed. Quite the likeliest thing
for him to do, only he didn't do it. Don't believe that fox
belonged to this side of the country at all. Don't understand
his tactics. If it had been in my poor friend Denier's time, I
might have suspected him of being a bagman."

Lord Fallowfeild chuckled a little.

*' Ran too straight for a bagman," Shotover remarked.
'^ Well, he gave us a rattling good spin whose-ever fox he
was."

" Didn't he, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild genially. —
He turned sideways in his chair, threw one shapely leg across
the other, and addressed himself more exclusively to his host-
ess. " Haven't had such a day for years," he continued.
"And a very pleasant thing to have such a day just when my
son's down with me — very pleasant, indeed. It reminds me
of my poor, dear friend Henniker's time. Good fellow, Hen-
niker. I liked Henniker. Never had a better master than
Tom Henniker, very tactful, nice-feeling man, and had such
an excellent manner with the farmers Ah ! here's Cath-
cart— and Knott, How d'ye do, Knott ? Always glad to

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 579

see you. — Very pleasant meeting such a number of friends.
Very pleasant ending to a pleasant day, eh, Shotover ? Mrs.
Cathcart and I were just speaking of poor Tom Henniker*
You used to hunt then, Cathcart. Do you remember a run,
just about this time of year ? — It may have been a little earlier.
I tell you why. It was the second time the hounds met after
my poor friend Aldborough's funeral."

" Lord Aldborough died on the twenty-seventh of Octo-
ber," John Knott said. The doctor limped in walking. He
suffered a sharp twinge of sciatica and his face lent itself to
astonishing contortions.

^^ Plain man, Knott," Lord Fallowfeild commented in-
wardly. " Monstrously able fellow, but uncommonly plain.
So's Cathcart for that matter. Well-dressed man and very
well-preserved as to figure, but remarkably like an ourang-
outang now his eyes are sunk and his eyebrows have grown
so tufty." — Then he glanced anxiously at Lord Shotover to
assure himself of the entire absence of simian approximations
in the case of his own family. — " Oh ! ah ! yes," he remarked
aloud, and somewhat vaguely. " Quite right, Knott. Then
of course it was earlier. Record run for that season. Seldom
had a better. We found a fox in the Grimshott gorse and
ran to Water End without a check."

"And Lemuel Image got into the Tilney brook," Mary
Ormiston said, laughing a little.

"So he did though !" Lord P'allowfeild rejoined, beaming.
And then suddenly his complacency suffered eclipse. For,
looking at the speaker, he became disagreeably aware of hav-
ing, on some occasion, said something highly inconvenient
concerning this lady to one of her near relations. He rushed
into speech again : — " Loud-voiced, blustering kind of fellow.
Image. I never have liked Image. Extraordinary marriage
that of his with a connection of poor Aldborough's. Never
have understood how her people could allow it."

" Oh ! money'll buy pretty well everything in this world
except brains and a sound liver," Dr. Knott said, as he low-
ered himself cautiously on to the seat of the highest chair
available.

" Or a good conscience," Mrs. Cathcart observed, with
mild dogmatism.

"I am not altogether so sure about that," the doctor an-

58o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

swcrcd. " I have known the doubling of a few charitable
subscriptions work extensive cures under that head. Depend
upon it there's an immense deal more conscience-money paid
every year than ever finds its way into the coffers of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer."

" So there is though ! " said Lord Fallowfeild, with an air
of regretful conviction. -^ Never put it as clearly as that
myself, Knott, but must own I am afraid there is."

Mr. Cathcart, who had joined Lord Shotover upon the
hearth-rug, here intervened. He had a tendency to air local
grievances, especially in the presence of his existing noble
guest, whom he regarded, not wholly without reason, as some-
what lukewarm and dilatory in questions of reform.

" I own to sharing your dislike of Image," he remarked.
" He behaved in an anything but straightforward manner
about the site for the new cottage hospital at Parson's Holt."

" Did he, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild.

'^ Yes. — I supposed it had been brought to your notice."

Lord Fallowfeild fidgeted a little. — " Rather too down-
right, Cathcart," he said to himself. " Gets you into a cor-
ner and fixes you. Not fair, not at all fair in general society.
— Oh ! ah ! — cottage hospital, yes," he added aloud. ''' Very
tiresome, vexatious business about that hospital. I felt it very
much at the time."

" It was a regular job," Mr. Cathcart continued.

" No, not a job, not a job, my dear fellow. Unpleasant
word job. Nothing approaching a job, only an oversight, at
most an unfortunate error of judgment," Lord Fallowfeild
protested. — He glanced at his son inviting support, but that
gentleman was engaged in kindly conversation with bright-
eyed, little Godfrey Ormiston. He glanced at Mary — re-
membered suddenly that his unfortunate remark regarding that
lady had been connected with her resemblance to her father,
and the latter's striking defect of personal beauty. He
glanced at the doctor. But John Knott sat all hunched to-
gether, watching him with an expression rather sardonic than
sympathetic.

" There was culpable negligence somewhere, in any case,"
his persecutor, Mr. Cathcart, went on. " It was obvious
Image pressed that bit of land at Waters End on the com-
mittee simply because no one would buy it for building pur-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 581

poses. His afFectation of generosity as to price was a piece
of transparent hypocrisy."

" I suppose it was/' Lord Fallowfeild agreed mildly.

*^ A certain anonymous donor had promised a second five
hundred pounds, if the hospital was built on high ground with
a subsoil of gravel."

" It is on gravel," put in Lord Fallowfeild anxiously.
*' Saw it myself — distinctly remember seeing gravel when the
heather had been pared before digging the foundations — bright
yellow gravel."

" Yes, and with a ten-foot bed of blue clay underneath.
Most dangerous soil going," — this from Dr. Knott, grimly.

" Is it, though ? " Lord Fallowfeild inquired, with an amia-
ble effort tc welcome unpalatable, geological information.

" Not a doubt of it. The surface water and generally the
sewage — for we are very far yet from having discovered a
drain-pipe which is impeccable in respect of leakage — soak
through the porous cap down to the clay and lie there — to rise
again not at the Last Day by any means, but on the evening of
the very first one that's been hot enough to cause evaporation.**

" Do they, though ? " said Lord Fallowfeild. He was
greatly impressed. — " Capable fellow, Knott, wonderful thing
science," he commented inwardly and with praiseworthy hu-
mility.

But Mr. Cathcart returned to the charge.

" The hospital was disastrously the loser, in any case," he
remarked. " As a matter of course, the conditions having
been disregarded. Lady Calmady withdrew her promise of a
second donation."

" Oh ! ah ! Lady Calmady, really ! " the simple-minded
nobleman exclaimed. " Very interesting piece of news and
very generous intention, no doubt, on the part of Lady Cal-
mady. But give you my word Cathcart that until this mo-
ment I had no notion that the anonymous donor of whom we
heard so much from one or two members of the committee — •
heard too much, I thought, for I dislike mysteries — foolish,
unprofitable things mysteries — always turn out to be nothing
at all in the finish — oh ! ah ! yes — well, that the anonymous
donor was Lady Calmady ! "

And thereupon he shifted his position with as much assump-
tion of hauteur as his inherent amiability permitted. He

582 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

turned his chair sideways, presenting an excellently flat, if
somewhat broad, scarlet-clad back to his persecutor upon the
hearth-rug. — "' Sorry to set a man down in his own house," he
said to himself, " but Cathcart's a little wanting in taste some-
times. He presses a subject home too closely. And, if I
.,was bamboozled by Image, it really isn't Cathcart's place to
'remind me of it."

He turned a worried and puckered countenance upon his
hostess, upon Dr. Knott, upon the drawing-room door. In
the hall beyond one or two guests still lingered. A lady had
just joined them, notably straight and tall, and lazily graceful
of movement. Lord Fallowfeild knew her, but could not re-
member her name.

"Oh I ah! Shotover," he said, over his shoulder, "I
don't want to hurry you, my dear boy, but perhaps it would
be as well if you'd just go round to the stables and take a look
at the horses."

Then, as the gentleman addressed moved away, escorted by
his host and followed in admiring silence by Godfrey Ormis-
ton, he repeated, almost querulously : — " Foolish things mys-
teries. Nothing in them, as a rule, when you thrash them
out. Mares' nests generally. And that reminds me, I hear
young " — Lord Fallowfeild's air of worry became accentuated
— " young Calmady's got home again at last."

" Yes," Mrs. Cathcart said, " Richard and his mother have
been at Brockhurst nearly a month."

" Have they, though ? " exclaimed Lord Fallowfeild. He
£dgeted. " It's a painful subject to refer to, but I should be
glad to know the truth of these nasty, uncomfortable rumours
about young Calmady. You see there was that question of
his and my youngest daughter's marriage. I never approved.
Shotover backed me up in it. He didn't approve either. And
in the end Calmady behaved in a very high-minded, straight-
forward manner. Came to me himself and exhibited very
good sense and very proper feeling, did Calmady. Admitted
his own disabilities with extraordinary frankness, too much
frankness, I was inclined to think at the time. It struck me
as a trifle callous, don't you know. But afterwards, when he
left home in that singular manner and went abroad, and we all
iost sight of him, and heard how reckless he had become and
all that, it weighed on me. I give you my word, Mrs. Cath-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 5»3

cart, it weighed very much on me. I've seldom been more
upset by anything in my life than I was by the whole affair of
that wedding."

" I am afraid it was a great mistake throughout," Mrs^»
Cathcart said. She folded her plump, white hands upon her
ample lap and sighed gently.

" Wasn't it, though ? So I told everybody from the start
you know," commented Lord Fallowfeild.

" It caused a great deal of unhappiness."

" So it did, so it did," the good man said, quite humbly.
He looked crestfallen, his kindly and well-favoured counte-
nance being overspread by an expression of disarmingly innocent
penitence. — " It weighed on me. I should be glad to be
able to forget it, but now it's all cropping up again. You see
there are these rumours that poor, young Calmady's gone under
very much one way and another, that his health's broken up
altogether, and that he is shut up in two rooms at Brockhurst
because — it's a terribly distressing thing to mention, but that's
the common talk, you know — because he's a little touched
here " — the speaker tapped his smooth and very candid fore-
head— " a little wrong here ! Horrible thing insanity," he re-
peated.

At this point Dr. Knott, who had been watching first one
person present and then another from under his shaggy eye-
brows with an air of somewhat harsh amusement, roused him-
self.

" Pardon me, all a pack of lies, my lord," he said, " and
stupid ones into the bargain. Sir Richard Calmady's as sane,
as you are yourself."

" Is he, though ? " the other exclaimed, brightening sensibly;.
'^ Thank you, Knott. It is a very great relief to me to hear
that."

"Only a man with a remarkably sound constitution could
have pulled round. I quite own he's been very hard hit, and:
no wonder. Typhoid and complications "

" Ah ! complications ? " inquired Lord Falr^wfeild, who.
rarely let slip an opportunity of acquiring information of a
pathological description.

"Yes, complications. Of the sort that are most difficult:
to deal with, emotional and moral — beginning with his en-^
gagement to Lady Constance

584 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" Oh, dear me ! " — this, piteously, from that lady's father.

"And ending — his Satanic Majesty knows where! I don't.
It's no concern of mine, nor of any one else's in my opinion.
He has paid his footing — every man has to pay it, sooner or
later — to life and experience, and personal acquaintance with
the thou shalt not which, for cause unknown, goes for so
almighty much in this very queer business of human existence.
He has had a rough time, never doubt that, with his high-
strung, arrogant, sensitive nature and the dirty trick played on
him by that heartless jade. Dame Fortune, before his birth.
For the time, this illness had knocked the wind out of him.
If he sulks for a bit, small blame to him. But he'll come
round. He is coming round day by day."

As he finished speaking the doctor got on to his feet some-
what awkwardly. His subject had affected him more deeply
than he quite cared either to own to himself or to have others
see.

" That plaguy sciatic nerve again ! " he growled.

Lord Fallowfeild had risen also. — "Capable man, Knott,
but rather rough at times, rather too didactic," he said to him-
self, as he turned to greet Miss St. Quentin. She had strolled
in from the hall. Her charming face was full of merriment.
There was something altogether gallant in the carriage of her
small head.

" I was so awfully glad to see Lord Shotover ! " she said, as
she gave her hand to that gentleman's father. " It's an age
since he and I have met."

"Very pleasant hearing, my dear young lady, for Shotover,
if he was here to hear it I Lucky fellow, Shotover." — The
kindly nobleman beamed upon her. He was nothing if not
chivalrous. Mentally, all the same, he was much perplexed.
** Of course, I remember who she is. But I understood it
was Ludovic," he said to himself. " Made sure it was
Ludovic. Uncommonly attractive, high-bred woman. Very
•striking looking pair, she and Shotover. Can't fancy Shotover
settled though. Say she's a lot of money. Wonder whether
it is Shotover? — Uncommonly fine run, best run we've had
for years," he added aloud. " Pity you weren't out. Miss St.
Quentin. — Well, good-bye, Mrs. Cathcart. I must be going.
I am extremely grateful for all your kindness and hospitality.
It is seldom I have the chance of meeting so many friends

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 585

this side of the country. — Good-day to you, Knott — good-
bye, Miss St. Quentin. — Wonder if I'd better ask her to
Whitney," he thought, "on the chance of its being Shotover.?
Eetter sound him hrst though. Never let a man in for a
woman unless you've very good reason to suppose he vi^ants
her."

Honoria, meanwhile, thrusting her hands into the pockets
of her long, fur-lined, tan, cloth, driving-coat sat down on
the arm of Mary Ormiston's flovi^ery-patterned, chintz-
covered chair.

" I left you all in a state of holy peace and quiet," she
said, smiling, " and a fine show^ you've got on hand by the
time I come back."

'' They ran across the ten-acre field and killed in the shrub-
bery," Mrs. Ormiston put in.

John Knott limped forward. He stood with his hands be-
hind him looking down at the two ladies. Some months had
elapsed since he and Miss St. Quentin had met. He was very
fond of the young lady. It interested him to meet her again,
Honoria glanced up at him smiling.

" Have you been out too ? " she asked.

" Not a bit of it. I'm too busy mending other people's
brittle anatomy to have time to risk breaking any part of my
own. I'm ugly enough already. No need to make me
juglier. I came here for the express purpose of calling on
you."

*^You saw Katherine ?" Mary asked.

" Oh yes ! I saw Cousin Katherine."

" How is she ? "

" An embodiment of faith, hope, and charity, as usual, but
with just that pinch of malice thrown in which gives the com-
pound a flavour. In short, she is enchanting. And then she
looks so admirably well."

'^ That six months at sea was a great restorative," Mary
remarked.

" Yet it really is rather wonderful when you consider the
state she was in before we went to you at Ormiston, and
how frightened we were at her undertaking the journey to
Naples."

" Her affections are satisfied," Dr. Knott said, and his loose
lips worked mto a smile, half sneering, half tender. " I am

586 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

an old man, and I have had a good lot to do with women — at
second hand. Feed their hearts, and the rest of the mechanism
runs easy enough. Anything short of organic disease can be
cured by that sort of nourishment. Even organic disease can
be arrested by it. And what's more, I have known disease
develop in an apparently perfectly healthy subject simply be-
cause the heart was starved. Oh ! I tell you, you're marvel-
ous beings."

" And yet you know I feel so abominably sold," Honoria
declared, " when I consider the way in which we all — Roger,
Mr. Quayle, and I — acted bodyguard, attended Cousin Kath-
erine to Naples, wrapped her in cotton wool, dear thing,
sternly determined to protect her at all costs and all hazards
from — well, I am ashamed to say I had no name bad enough
at that time for Richard Calmady ! And then this very
person, whom we regarded as her probable destruction, proves
to be her absolute salvation, while she proceeds to turn the
tables upon us in the smartest fashion imaginable. She showed
us the door and entreated us, in the most beguiling manner, to
return whence we came and leave her wholly at the mercy of
the enemy. I was furious " — Miss St. Quentin laughed —
'' downright furious ! And Roger's temper, for all his high-
mightiness, was a thing to swear at, rather than swear by, the
morning he and I left Naples. With the greatest difficulty we
persuaded her even to keep Clara. She had a rage, dear thing,
for getting rid of the lot of us. Oh ! we had a royal skirmish
and no mistake."

" So Roger told me."

Honoria stretched herself a little, lolled against the back of
the chair, steadying herself by laying one hand affectionately on
the other woman's shoulder. And John Knott, observing
her, noted not only her nonchalant and almost boyish grace,
but a swift change in her humour from light-hearted laughter
to a certain, and as he fancied, half-unwilling enthusiasm.

" But to-day," she went on, ^^ when Cousin Katherine told
me about it, I confess the whole situation laid hold of me. I
could not help seeing it must have been finely romantic to go
off like that — -those two alone — caring as she cares, and after
the long separation. It sounds like a thing in some Elizabethan
ballad. There's a rhythm in it all which stirs one's blood.
She says the yacht's crew were delightful to her, and treated

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 587

Tier as a queen. One can fancy that — the stately, lovely
queen-mother, and that strange only son ! — They called in at
the North African ports, and at Gib and Madeira, and the Cape
de Verds, and then ran straight for Rio. Then they steamed
up the coast to Pernambuco, and on to the West Indies.
Richard never went ashore. Cousin Katherine only once or
twice. But they squattered about in the everlasting summer
of tropic harbours, fringed with palms and low, dim, red-
roofed, tropic houses — just sampled it all, the colour, and
light, and beauty, and far awayness of it — and then, when the
fancy took them, got up steam and slipped out again to sea.
And the name of the yacht is the Reprieve, That's in the
picture, isn't it ? "

Honoria paused. She leaned forward, her chin in her
hands, her elbows on her knees. She looked up at John Knott,
and there was a singular expression in her clear and serious
€yes.

" I used to pity Cousin Katherine," she said. '' I used to
break my heart over her. And now — now, upon my word, I
believe I envy her. — And see here. Dr. Knott, she has asked
me to go on to Brockhurst from here. It seems that though
Richard refuses to see any one, except you of course, and Julius
March, he fusses at his mother being so much alone. What
ought I to do ? I feel rather uncertain. I have fought him,
I own I have. We have never been friends, he and I. He
doesn't like me. He's no reason to like me — anything but !
What do you say ? Shall I refuse or shall I go ? "

And the doctor reflected a little, drawing his great, square
hand down over his mouth and heavy, bristly chin.

" Yes, go," he answered. " Go and chance it. Your
being at Brockhurst may work out in more of good than we
jiow know."

588 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

CHAPTER V

TELLING HOW DICKIE CAME TO UNTIE A CERTAIN TAG OF
RUSTY, BLACK RIBBON

'VT^ET, as those gray, midwinter weeks went on to Christ-
mas, and the coming of the New Year, it became un-
deniable there was that in the aspect of affairs at Brockhurst
which might very well provoke curious comment. For the
rigour of Richard Calmady's self-imposed seclusion, to which
Miss St. Quentin had made allusion in her conversation with
Dr. Knott, was not relaxed. Rather, indeed, did it threaten
to pass from the accident of a first return, after long absence
and illness, into a matter of fixed and accepted habit. For
those years of lonely wandering and spasmodic rage of livings
finding their climax in deepening disappointment, disillusion,,
and the shock of rudely inflicted insult and disgrace, had pro-
duced in Richard a profound sense of alienation from society
and from the amenities of ordinary intercourse. Since he wa&
apparently doomed to survive, he would go home — but go
home very much as some trapped or wounded beast crawls
back to hide in its lair. He was master in his own house, at
least, and safe from intrusion there. The place offered the
silent sympathy of things familiar, and therefore, in a sensc^
uncritical. It is restful to look on that upon which one has
already looked a thousand times. And so, after his reconcilia-
tion with his mother, followed, in natural sequence, his recon-
ciliation with Brockhurst. Here he would see only those who
loved him well enough — in their several stations and degrees
— to respect his humour, to ask no questions, to leave him to
himself. Richard was gentle in manner at this period, courte-
ous, humorous even. But a great discouragement was upon
him. It seemed as though some string had snapped, leaving
half his nature broken, unresponsive, and dumb. He had no
ambitions, no desire of activities. Sport and business, were as
little to his mind as society.

More than this. — At first the excuse of fatigue had served

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 589

him, but very soon it came to be a tacitly admitted fact that
Richard did not leave the house. Surely it was large enough,
he said, to afford space for all the exercise he needed ? Re-
fusing to occupy his old suite of rooms on the ground-floor,
he had sent orders, before his arrival, that the smaller library,
adjoining the Long-Gallery, should be converted into a bed-
chamber for him. It had been Richard's practice, when on
board ship, to steady his uncertain footsteps, on the slippery
or slanting plane of the deck, by the use of crutches. And
this practice he in great measure retained. It increased his
poor powers of locomotion. It rendered him more independ-
ent. Sometimes, when secure that Lady Calmady would not
receive visitors, he would make his way by the large library,
the state drawing-room, and stair-head, to the Chapel-Room and
sit with her there. But more often his days were spent ex-
clusively in the Long-Gallery. He had brought home many
curious and beautiful objects from his wanderings. He would
add these to the existing collection. He would examine the
books too, procure such volumes as were needed to complete
any imperfect series, and, in the departments both of science,
literature, and travel, bring the library up to date. He would
devote his leisure to the study of various subjects — especially
natural science — regarding which he was conscious of a
knowledge, deficient, or merely empirical.

" I really am perfectly contented, mother," he said to Lady
Calmady more than once. " Look at the length and breadth
of the gallery ! It is as a city of magnificent distances, after the
deck of the dear, old yacht and my twelve-foot cabin. And
Pm not a man calculated to occupy so very much space after
all ! Let me potter about here with my books and my bibelots.
Don't worry about me, I shall keep quite well, I promise you.
Let me hybernate peacefully until spring, anyhow. I have
plenty of occupation, Julius is going to amend the library
catalogue with me, and there are those chests of deeds, and
order-books, and diaries, which really ought to be looked
over. As it appears pretty certain I shall be the last of the
race, it would be only civil, I think, to bestow a little of my
ample leisure upon my forefathers, and set down some more
or less comprehensive account of them and their doings.
They appear to have been given to ratner dramatic adventures.
— Don't you worry, you dear sweet ! As I say, let me hjr-

590 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

bernate until the birds of passage come and the young leaves
are green in the spring. Then, when the days grow long and
bright, the sea will begin to call again, and, when it calls, you
and I will pack and go/'

And Katherine yielded, being convinced that Richard could
treat his own case best. If healing, complete and radical, was
to be affected, it must come from within and not from with-
out. Her wisdom was to wait in faith. There was much
that had never been told, and never would be told. Much
which had not been explained, and never would be explained.
For, notwithstanding the very gracious relation existing be-
tween herself and Richard, Katherine realised that there were
blank spaces not only in her knowledge of his past action, but
in her knowledge of the sentiments which now animated him.
As from a far country his mind, she perceived, often traveled
to meet hers. "There was a door to which she found no
key." But Katherine, happily, could respect the individual-
ity even of her best beloved. Unlike the majority of her sex
she was incapable of intrusion, and did not make affection an
excuse for familiarity. Love, in her opinion, enjoins obliga-
tion of service, rather than confers rights of examination and
direction. She had learned the condition in which his serv-
ants had found Richard, in the opera box of the great theatre
at Naples, lying upon the floor unconscious, his face disfig-
ured, cut, and bleeding. But what had produced this condi-
tion, whether accident or act of violence, she had not learned.
She had also learned that her niece, Helen de Vallorbes, had
^ayed at the villa just before the commencement of Richard's
illness — he merely passing his days there, and spending his
nights on board the yacht in the harbour, where, no doubt, that
same illness had been contracted. But she resisted the incli-
nation to attempt further discovery. She even resisted the in-
clination to speculate regarding all this. What Richard might
elect to tell her, that, and that only, would she know, lest,
seeking further, bitter and vindictive thoughts should arise in
her and mar the calm, pathetic sweetness of the present and
her deep, abiding joy in the recovery of her so-long-lost de-
light. She refused to go behind the fact — the glad fact that
Richard once more was with her, that her eyes beheld him,
her ears heard his voice, her hands met his. Every little act
of thoughtful care, every pretty word of half-playful afFcc-

i

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 591

tion, confirmed her thankfulness and made the present blest.
Even this somewhat morbid tendency of his to shut himself
away from the observation of all acquaintance, conferred on
her such sweetly exclusive rights of intercourse that she could
not greatly quarrel with his secluded way of life. As to the
business of the estate and household, this had become so much
a matter of course to her that it caused her but small labour.
If she could deal with it when Richard was estranged and far
away, very surely she could deal with it now, when she had
but to open the door of that vast, silvery-tinted, pensively
fragrant, many-windowed room, and entering, among its many
strange and costly treasures, find him — a treasure as strange,
and if counted by her past suffering, as costly, as ever ravished
and tortured a woman's heart.

And so it came about that, to such few friends as she re-
ceived, Katherine could show a serene countenance. Shortly
before Christmas, Miss St. Quentin came to Brockhurst, and
coming stayed, adapting herself with ready tact to the altered
conditions of life there. Katherine found not only pleasure,
but support, in the younger woman's presence, in her devoted
yet unexacting affection, in her practical ability, and in the
sight of so graceful a creature going to and fro. She installed
her guest in the Gun-Room suite. And, by insensible de-
grees, permitted Honoria to return to many of her former av-
ocations in connection with the estate, so that the young lady
took over much of the outdoor business, riding forth almost
daily, by herself or in company with Julius March, to super-
intend matters of building or repairing, of road-mending,
hedging, copsing, or forestry, and not infrequently cheering
Chifney — a somewhat sour-minded man just now and prickly--
tempered, since Richard asked no word of him or of his
horses — by visits to the racing stables.

" I had better step down and have a crack with the poor,
old dear. Cousin Katherine," she would say, " or those un
lucky little wretches of boys will catch it double tides, which
really is rather superfluous."

And all the while, amid her very varied interests and occu-
pations, remembrance of that hidden, twilight life, going for-
ward up-stairs in the well-known rooms which she now never
entered, came to Honoria as some perpetually recurrent and
mournful harmony, in an otherwise not ungladsome piece of

592 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

music, might have come. It exercised a certain dominion
over her mind. So that Richard Calmady, though never ac-
tually seen by her, was never v^^holly absent from her thought.
All the orderly routine of the great house, all the day's work
and the sentiment of it, was subtly influenced by awareness
of the actuality of his invisible presence. And this affected
her strongly, causing her hours of repulsion and annoyance,
and again hours of abounding, if reluctant pity, when the un-
natural situation of this man — young as herself, endowed with
a fine intelligence, an aptitude for affairs, the craving for
amusement common to his age and class — and the pathos in-
herent in that situation, haunted her imagination. His self-in-
flicted imprisonment appeared a reflection upon, in a sense a
reproach to, her own freedom of soul and pleasant liberty of
movement. And this troubled her. It touched her pride
somehow. It produced in her a false conscience, as though
she were guilty of an unkindness, a lack of considerateness
and perfect delicacy.

" Whether he behaves well or ill, whether he is good or
bad, Richard Calmady invariably takes up altogether too much
room," she would tell herself half angrily — to find herself within
half an hour, under plea of usefulness to his mother, warmly
interested in some practical matter from which Richard Cal-
mady would derive, at least indirectly, distinct advantage and
benefit !

This, then, was the state of affairs one Saturday afternoon
at the beginning of February. With poor Dickie himself the
day had been marked by abundant discouragement. He was
well in body. The restfulness of one quiet, uneventful week
following another had steadied his nerves, repaired the waste
of fever, and restored his physical strength. But, along with
this return of health had come a growing necessity to lay hold
of some idea, to discover some basis of thought, some incen-
tive to action, which should make life less purposeless and un-
profitable. Richard, in short, was beginning to generate more
energy than he could place. The old order had passed away,
and no new order had, as yet, effectively disclosed itself. He
had not formulated all this, or even consciously recognised
the modification of his own attitude. Nevertheless he felt the
gnawing ache of inward emptiness. It effectually broke up
the torpor which had held him. It made him very restless.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 593

It reawoke in him an inclination to speculation and experi-
ment.

Snow had fallen during the earlier hours of the day, and, the
surface of the ground being frost-bound, it, though by no
means deep, remained unmelted. The whiteness of it, given
back by the ceiling and pale paneling of walls of the Long-
Gallery, notwithstanding the generous fires burning in the two
ornate, high-ranging chimney-places, produced, as the day
waned, an effect of rather stark cheerlessness in the great
room. This was at once in unison with Richard's somewhat
bleak humour, and calculated to increase the famine of it.

All day long he had tried to stifle the cry of that same
famine, that same hunger of unplaced energy, by industrious
work. He had examined, noted, here and there transcribed,
passages from deeds, letters, order-books, and diaries offering
first-hand information regarding former generations of Cal-
madys. It happened that studies he had recently made in con-
temporary science, specially in obtaining theories of biology,
had brought home to him what tremendous factors in the
development and fate of the individual are both evolution and
heredity. At first idly, and as a mere pastime, then with in-
creasing eagerness — in the vague hope his researches might
throw light on matters of moment to himself and of personal
application — he had tried to trace out tastes and strains of
tendency common to his ancestors. But under this head he
had failed to make any very notable discoveries. For these
courtiers, soldiers, and sportsmen were united merely by the
obvious characteristics of a high-spirited, free-living race.
They were raised above the average of the country gentry,
perhaps, by a greater appreciation, than is altogether common,
of literature and art. But as Richard soon perceived it was
less any persistent peculiarity of mental and physical constitu-
tion, than a similarity of outward event united them. The
perpetually repeated chronicle of violence and accident which
he read, in connection with his people, intrigued his reason,
and called for explanation. Was it possible, he began to ask
himself, that a certain heredity in incident, in external happen-
ing, may not cling to a race ? That these may not by some
strange process be transmissible, as are traits of character,
temperament, stature, colouring, feature, and face ? And if
this — as matter of speculation merely — was the case, must

594 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

there not exist some antecedent cause to which could be
referred such persistent effect ? Might not an hereditary fate
in external events take its rise in some supreme moral or
spiritual catastrophe, some violation of law ? The Greek
dramatists held it was so. The writers of the Old Testament
held it was so, too.

Sitting at the low writing-table, near the blazing fire, that
stark whiteness reflected from off the snow-covered land all
around him, Richard debated this point with himself. He ad-
mitted the theory was not scientific, according to the reason-
ing of modern physical science. It approached an outlook
theological rather than rationalistic, yet he could not deny the
conception, admission. The vision of a doomed family arose
before him — starting in each successive generation with bril-
liant prospects and high hope, only to find speedy extinction in
some more or less brutal form of death — a race dwindling,
moreover, in numbers as the years passed, until it found repre-
sentation in a single individual, and that individual maimed,
and incomplete ! Heredity of accident, heredity of disaster,
finding final expression in himself — this confronted Richard. —
He had reckoned himself, heretofore, a solitary example of ill-
fortune. But, mastering the contents of these records, he
found himself far from solitary. He merely participated,
though under a novel form, in the unlucky fate of all the men
of his race. And then arose the question — to him, under exist-
ing circumstances, of vital importance — what stood behind all
that — blind chance, cynical indifference, wanton and arbitrary
cruelty, or some august, far-reaching necessity of, as yet, un-
satisfied justice ?

Richard pushed the crackling, stiffly-folded parchments, the
letters frayed and yellow with age, the broken-backed, dis-
coloured diaries and order-books, away from him, and sat, his
elbows on the table, his chin in his hands^ thinking. And the
travail of his spirit was great, as it needs must be, at times,
with every human being who dares live at first, not merely at
second hand — who dares attempt a real, and not merely a
nominal assent — who dares deal with earthly existence, the
amazing problems and complexities of it, immediately, refusing
to accept — with indolent timidity — tradition, custom, hearsay,
convenience, as his guides. — Oh ! for some sure answering,
some unimpeachable assurance, some revelation not relative

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 59s

and symbolic, but absolute, some declaration above all suspicion
of cunningly-devised opportunism, concerning the dealings of
the unknown force man calls God, with the animal man calls
man ! — And then Richard turned upon himself contemptuously.
For it was childish to cry out thus. The heavens were dumb
above him as the snow-bound earth was dumb beneath.
There was no sign ! — Never had been. Never would be, save
in the fond imaginations of religious enthusiasts, crazed by
superstition, by austerities, and hysteria, duped by ignorance,
by hypocrites and quacks.

With long-armed adroitness he reached down and picked up
those light-made, stunted crutches, slipped from his chair and
adjusted them. For a long while he had used them as a
matter of course without criticism or thought. But now they
produced in him a swift disgust. His hands, grasping the
lowest crossbar of them, were in such disproportionate proxim-
ity to the floor ! For the moment he was disposed to fling
them aside. Then again he turned upon himself with scath-
ing contempt. For this too was childish. What did the use
of them matter, since, used or not, the fact of his crippled
condition remained ? And so, with a renewal of bitterness
and active rebellion, lately unknown to him, he moved away
down the great room — past bronze athlete and marble goddess,
past oriental jars, tall as himself, uplifted on the squat, carven,
ebony stands, past strangely-painted, half-fearful, lacquer
cabinets, past porcelain bowls filled with faint sweetness of
dried rose-leaves, bay, lavender, and spice, past trophies of
savage warfare and, hardly less savage, civilised sport, towards
the wide mullion-window of the eastern bay. But just be-
fore reaching it, he came opposite to a picture by Velasquez,
set on an easel across the corner of the room. It represented
a hideous and misshapen dwarf, holding a couple of graceful
greyhounds in a leash — an unhappy creature who had made
sport for the household of some Castilian grandee, and whose
gorgeous garments, of scarlet and gold, were ingeniously de-
signed so as to emphasise the physical degradation of its con-
torted person. Richard had come, of late, to take a sombre
pleasure in the contemplation of this picture. The desolate
eyes, looking out of the marred and brutal face, met his own
with a certain claim of kinship. There existed a tragic free-
masonry between himself and thi$ outcasted being, begotten of

596 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

a common knowledge, a common experience. As a boy
Richard hated this picture, studiously avoided the sight of it.
It had suggested comparisons which wounded his self-respect
too shrewdly and endangered his self-security. He hated it
no longer, finding grim solace, indeed, in its sad society.

And it was thus, in silent parley with this rather dreadful
companion, as the blear February twilight descended upon the
bare, black trees and snow-clad land without, and upon the
very miscellaneous furnishings of the many-windowed gallery
within, that Julius March now discovered Richard Calmady.
He had returned, across the park, from one of the quaint brick-
and-timber cottages just without the last park gate, at the end
of Sandyfield Church-lane. A labourer's wife was dying,
painfully enough, of cancer, and he had administered the
Blessed Sacrament to her, there, in her humble bedchamber.
The august promises and adorable consolations of that mys-
terious rite remained very sensibly present to him on his home-
ward way. His spirit was uplifted by the confirmation of the
divine compassion therein perpetually renewed, perpetually
made evident. And, it followed, that coming now upon Rich-
ard Calmady alone, here, in the stark, unnatural pallor of the
winter dusk, holding silent communion with that long-ago
victim of merciless practices and depraved tastes, not only
caused him a painful shock, but also moved him with fervid
desire to offer comfort and render help. — Yet, what to say,
how to approach Richard without risk of seeming officious-
ness and consequent offense, he could not tell. The young
man's experiences and his own were so conspicuously far
apart. For a moment he stood uncertain and silent, then he
said : —

" That picture always fills me with self-reproach."

Richard looked round with a certain lofty courtesy by no
means encouraging. And, as he did so, Julius March was
conscious of receiving a further, and not less painful impres-
sion. For Richard's face was very still, not with the still-
ness of repose, but with that of fierce emotion held resolutely
in check, while in his eyes was a desolation rivalling that of
the eyes portrayed by the great Spanish artist upon the canvas
close at hand.

"When I first came to Brockhurst, that picture used to
hang in the study," he continued, by way of explanation.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 597

«* Ah ! I see, and you turned it out ! " Richard observed,
not without an inflection of irony.

**Yes. In those days I am afraid I did not discriminate
very justly between refinement of taste and self-indulgent
fastidiousness. While pluming myself upon an exalted standard
of sensibility and sentiment, I rather basely spared myself
acquaintance with that, both in nature and in art, which might
cause me distress or disturbance of thought. I was a mental
valetudinarian, in short. I am ashamed of my defect of
moral courage and charity in relation to that picture."

Richard shifted his position slightly, looked fixedly at the
canvas and then down at his own hands in such dispropor-
tionate proximity to the floor.

" Oh ! you were not to blame," he said. '' It is obviously
a thing to laugh at, or run from, unless you happen to have
received a peculiar mental and physical training. Anyhow the
poor devil has found his way home now and come into port
safely enough at last ? "

He glanced back at the picture, over his shoulder, as he
moved across the room.

" Perhaps he's even found a trifle of genuine sympathy —
so don't vex your righteous soul over your repudiation of him,
my dear Julius. The lapses of the virtuous may make, in-
directly, for good. And your instinct, after all, was both the
healthy and the artistic one. Velasquez ought to have been
incapable of putting his talent to such vile uses, and the first
comer with a spark of true philanthropy in him ought to have
knocked that poor little monstrosity on the head."

Richard came to the writing-table, glanced at the papers
which encumbered it, made for an armchair drawn up beside
the fire.

"Sit down, Julius," he said. "There is something quite
else about which I want to speak to you. I have been work-
ing through all these documents, and they give rise to specula-
tions neither strictly scientific nor strictly orthodox, yet in-
teresting all the same. You are a dealer in ethical problems.
I wonder if you can offer any solution of this one, of which
the basis conceivably is ethical. As to these various owners
of Brockhurst — Sir Denzil, the builder of the house, is a
delightful person, and appears to have prospered mightily in
his undertakings, as so liberal-minded and ingenious a gentle-

598 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

man had every right to prosper. But after him — from the
time, at least, of his grandson, Thomas — everything seems to
have gone to rather howling grief here. We have nothing
but battle, murder, and sudden death. These become posi-
tively monotonous in the pertinacity of t^eir repetition. Of
course one may argue that adventurous persons expose them-
selves to an uncommon number of dangers, and consequently
pay an uncommon number of forfeits. I dare say that is the
reasonable explanation. Only the persistence of the thing
gets hold of one rather. The manner of their dying is very
varied, yet there are two constant quantities in each succes-
sive narrative, namely, violence and comparative youth."

Richard's speech had become rapid and imperative. Now
he paused.

" Think of my father's death, for instance — " he said.

His narrow, black figure crouched together, Julius March
knelt on one knee before the fire. He held his thin hands
outspread, so as to keep the glow of the burning logs from his
face. He was deeply moved, debating a certain matter with
himself.

" To all questions supremely worth having answered, there
is no answer — I take that for granted," the young man con-
tinued. " And yet one is so made that it is impossible not to
go on asking. I can't help wanting to get at the root of this
queer recurrence of accident, and all the rest of it, which
clings to my people. I can't help wanting to make out
whether there was any psychological moment which deter-
mined the future, and started them definitely on the down-
grade. What happened — that's what I want to arrive at —
what happened at that moment ? Had it any reasonable and
legitimate connection with all which has followed ? *'

As he held them outspread, between his face and the glow-
ing fire, Julius March's hands trembled. He found himself
confronted by a situation which he had long foreseen, long
and earnestly prayed to avoid. The responsibility was so
great of either giving or withholding the answer, as he knew
it, to that question of Dickie's. A way of rendering possible
help opened before him. But it was a way beset with diffi-
culties, a way at once fantastic and coarsely realistic, a way
along which the sublime and the ridiculous jostled each other
with somewhat undignified closeness of association, a way

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 599

demanding childlike faith, not to say childish credulity, coupled
with a great fearlessness and self-abnegation before ever a man's
steps could be profitably set in it. If presented to Richard,
would he not turn angrily from it as an insult offered to his
intellect and his breeding alike ? Indeed, the hope of effect-
ing good showed very thin. The danger of provoking evil
bulked very big. What was his duty ? He suffered an agony
of indecision. And again with a slight inflection of mockery
in his tone, Richard spoke.

'' All blind chance, Julius ? I declare I get a little weary
of this Deity of yours. He neglects his business so fla-
grantly. He really is rather scandalously much of an absentee.
And He would be so welcome if He would condescend to
deal a trifle^ more openly with one, and satisfy one's intelli-
gence and moral sense. If, for instance. He would afford me
some information regarding this same psychological moment
which I need so badly just now as a peg to hang a theory of
casualty upon. I am ambitious — as much in the interests of
His reputation as in those of my own curiosity — to get at the
logic of the affair, to get at the why and wherefore of it, and
lay my finger on the spot where differentiation sets in."

Julius March stood upright. Richard's scorn hurt him. It
also terminated his indecision. For a little space he looked
out into the stark whiteness of the snowy dusk, and then
down at the young man, leaning back in the low chair, there
close before him. To Julius' short-sighted eyes, in the un-
certain light, Dickie's face bore compelling resemblance to
Lady Calmady's. This touched him with the memory of
much, and he went back on the thought of the divine com-
passion, perpetually renewed, perpetually made evident in the
Eucharistic Sacrifice. Man may rail, yet God is strong and
faithful to bless. Perhaps that way was neither too fantastic,
nor too humble, after all, for Richard to walk in.

" Has no knowledge of the received legend about this sub-*
ject ever reached you ? "

" No — never — -not a word."

" I became acquainted with it accidentally, long ago, before
your birth. It is inadmissible, according to modern canons of
thought, as such legends usually are. And events, subsequent
to my acquaintance with it, conferred on it so singular and
painful a significance that I kept my knowledge to myself.

6oo SIR RICHARD GALMADY

Perhaps when you grew up I ought to have put you in pos*
session of the facts. They touch you very nearly."

Richard raised his eyebrows.

" Indeed," he said coldly.

"But a fitting opportunity — at least, so I judged, being, I
own, backward and reluctant in the matter — never presented
itself. In this, as in much else, I fear I have betrayed my
trust and proved an unprofitable servant — if so may God for-
give me."

" It would have gone hard with Brockhurst without you,
Julius," Richard said, a sudden softening in his tone.

" I will bring you the documents the last thing to-night,
when — when your mother has left you. They are best read»
perhaps, in silence and alone."

CHAPTER VI

A LITANY OF THE SACRED HEART

T? ICHARD drew himself up on to the wide, cushioned
bench below the oriel-window. The February day was
windless and very bright. And although, in sheltered, low-
lying places, where the frost held, the snow still lingered, in
the open it had already disappeared, and that without unsight-
liness of slush — shrinking and vanishing, cleanly burned up
and absorbed by the genial heat. A Sabbath-day restfulness
held the whole land. There was no movement of labour,
cither of man or beast. And a kindred restfulness pervaded
the house. The rooms were vacant. None passed to and
fro. For it so happened that good Mr. Caryll's successor, the
now rector of Sandyfield, had been called away to deliver
certain charity sermons at Westchurch, and that to-day Julius
March officiated in his stead. Therefore Lady Calmady and
Miss St. Quentin, and the major part of the Brockhurst
household, had repaired by carriage or on foot to the little,
squat, red-brick, Georgian church whose two bells rang out so
friendly and fussy an admonition to the faithful to gather
within its walls.

Richard had the house to himself. And this accentuation

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 6oi

of solitude, combined with wider space wherein he could
range without fear of observation, was far from unwelcome to
him. Last night he had untied the tag of rusty, black ribbon
binding together the packet of tattered, dog's-eared, little
chap-books which for so long had reposed in the locked
drawer of Julius March's study table beneath the guardianship
of the bronze pieta. With very conflicting feelings he had
mastered the contents of those same untidy, little volumes, and
learned the sordid, and probably fabulous, tale set forth in them
in meanest vehicle of jingling verse. Vulgarly told to catch
the vulgar ear, pandering to the popular superstitions of a some-
what ignoble age, it proved repugnant enough — as Julius had
anticipated — both to Richard's reason and to his taste. The
critical faculty rejected it as an explanation absurdly inade-
quate. The cause was wholly disproportionate to the effect,
as though a mouse should spring forth a mountain instead of
a mountain a mouse. At least that was how the matter
struck Richard at first. For the story was, after all, as he told
himself, but a commonplace of life in every civilised com-
munity. Many a man sins thus, and many a woman suffers,
and many bastards are yearly born into the world without —
perhaps unfortunately — subsequent manifestation of the divine
wrath and signal chastisement of the sinner, or of his legiti-
mate heirs, male or female. Affiliation orders are as well
known to magistrate's clerks, as are death-certificates of chil-
dren bearing the maiden name of their mother to those of the
registrar.

All that Richard could dispose of, if with a decent deploring
of the frequency of it, yet composedly enough. But there
remained that other part of it. And this he could not dispose
of so cursorily. His own unhappy deformity, it is true, was
amply accounted for on lines quite other than the fulfilment
of prophecy, offering, as it did, example of a class of pre-
natal accidents which, if rare, is still admittedly recurrent in
the annals of obstetrics and embryology. Nevertheless, the
foretelling of that strange Child of Promise, whose outward
aspect and the circumstances of whose birth — as set forth in
the sorry rhyme of the chap-book — bore such startling re-
semblance to his own, impressed him deeply. It astonished,
it, in a sense, appalled him. For it came so very near. It
looked him so insistently in the face. It laid strong hands on

6o2 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

him from out the long past, claiming him, associating itself
imperatively with him, asserting, whether he would or no, the
actuality and inalienability of its relation to himself. Science
might pour scorn on that relation, exposing the absurdity of it
both from the moral and physical point of view. But senti-
ment held other language. And so did that nobler morality
which takes its rise in considerations spiritual rather than
social and economic, and finds the origins and ultimates, alike,
not in things seen and temporal, but in things unseen and
eternal — things which, though they tarry long for accomplish-
ment, can neither change, nor be denied, nor, short of ac-
complishment, can pass away.

And it was this aspect of the whole, strange matter — the
thought, namely, of that same Child of Promise who, predes-
tined to bear the last and heaviest stroke of retributive justice,
should, bearing it rightly, bring salvation to his race — which
obtained with Dickie on the fair Sunday morning in question.
It refused to quit him. It affected him through all his being.
It appealed to the poetry, the idealism, of his nature — a poetry
and idealism not dead, as he had bitterly reckoned them,
though sorely wounded by ill-living and the disastrous issues
of his passion for Hele-n de Vallorbes. He seemed to appre-
hend the approach of some fruitful, far-ranging, profoundly-
reconciling and beneficent event. As in the theatre at Naples,
when Morabita sang, and to his fever-stricken, brain-sick
fancy the dull-coloured multitude in the parterre murmured,
buzzing remonstrant as angry swarming bees, so now a cer-
tain exaltation of feeling, exaltation of hope, came upon him.
Yet having grown, through determined rebellion and unlovely
experience, not a little distrustful of all promise of good, he
turned on himself bitterly enough, asking if he would never
learn to profit by hardly-bought, practical knowledge ? If he
would never contrive to cast the simpleton wholly out of him ?
He had been fooled many times, fooled there at Naples to the
point of unpardonable insult and degradation. What so
probable as that he would be fooled again, now ?

And so, in effort to shake off both the dominion of un-
founded hope, and the gnawing ache of inward emptiness
which made that hope at once so cruel and so dear, as the
sound of wheels dying away along the lime avenue assured
him that the goodly company of church-goers had, verily

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 603

and indeed, departed, he set forth on a pilgrimage through
the great, silent house. Passing through the two libraries,.
the antechamber and state drawing-room — with its gilded
furniture, fine pictures and tapestries — he reached the open
corridor at the stair-head. Here the polished, oak floor,
the massive balusters, and tall, carven newel-posts — each
topped by a guardian griffin, long of tail, ferocious of beak,
and sharp of claw — showed with a certain sober cheerfulness
in the pleasant light. For, through all the great windows of
the eastern front, the sun slanted in obliquely. While in the
Chapel-Room beyond, situated in the angle of the house and
thus enjoying a southern as well as eastern aspect, Richard
found a veritable carnival of misty brightness, so that he
moved across to the oriel-window — whose gray, stone mullions
and carved transomes showed delicately mellow of tone be-
tween the glittering, leaded panes — in a glory of welcoming
warmth and sunlight. Frost and snow might linger in the
hollows, but here in the open, on the upland, spring surely
had already come.

With the help of a brass ring, riveted by a stanchion into
the space of paneling below the stone window-sill — placed
there long ago, when he was a little lad, to serve him in such
case as the present — Richard drew himself up on to the cush-
ioned bench. He unfastened one of the narrow, curved, iron-
framed casements, and, leaning his elbows on the sill, looked
out. The air was mild. The smell of the earth was sweet,
with a cleanly, wholesome sweetness. The sunshine covered
him. And somehow, whether he would or no, hope re-
asserted its dominion, and that exaltation of feeling entered
into possession of him once again, as he rested, gazing away
over the familiar home scene, over this land, which, as far as
sight carried, had belonged to his people these many genera-
tions, and was now his own.

Directly below, at the foot of the descending steps of the
main entrance, lay the square, red-walled space of gravel and
of turf. He looked at it curiously, for there, with the maim-
ing and death of Thomas Calmady's bastard, if legend said
truly, all this tragic history of disaster had begun. There^
too, the Clown, race-horse of merry name and mournful mem-
ory, had paid the penalty of wholly involuntary transgression
just thirty years ago. That last was a rather horrible incident^

6o4 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

of which Richard never cared to think. Chifney had told
him about it once, in connection with the parentage of Verdi-
gris— had told him just by chance. To think of it, even now,
made a lump rise in his throat. Across the turf — offering
<j[uaint contrast to those somewhat bloody memories — the pea-
cocks, in all their bravery of royal blue-purple, living green
and gold, led forth their sober-clad mates. They had come
out from the pepper-pot summer-houses to sun themselves.
They stepped mincingly, with a worldly and disdainful grace,
and, reaching the gravel, their resplendent trains swept the
rounded pebbles, making a small, dry, rattling sound, which,
so deep was the surrounding quiet, asserted itself to the extent
of saluting Dickie's ears. Beyond the red wall the parallel
lines of the elm avenue swept down to the blue and silver
levels of the Long Water, the alder copses bordering which
showed black-purple, and the reed-beds rusty as a fox, against
thin stretches of still unmelted snow. The avenue climbed
the farther ascent to the wide archway of the red and gray
gate-house, just short of the top of the long ridge of bare
moorland. The grass slopes of the park, to the left, were
backed by the dark, sawlike edge of the fir forest, and a soft
gloom of oak woods, gray-brown and mottled as a lizard's
belly and back, closed the end of the valley eastward. On
the right the terraced gardens, with their ranges of glittering
conservatories, fell away to the sombre pond in the valley,
home of loudly-discoursing companies of ducks. The gentle
hillside above was clothed by plantations, and a grove of
ancient beech trees, whose pale, smooth boles stood out from
among undergrowth of lustrous hollies and the warm russet
of fallen leaves. And over it all brooded the restfulness of
the Sabbath, and the gladness of a fair and equal light.

And the charm of the scene worked upon Richard, not
with any heat of excitement, but with a temperate and reason-
able grace. For the spirit of it all was a spirit of temperance,
of moderation, of secure tranquillity — a spirit stoic rather
than epicurean, ascetic rather than hedonic, yet generous,
spacious, nobly reasonable, giving ample scope for very sin-
cere, if soberly-clad pleasures, and for activities by no means
despicable or unmanly, though of a modest, unostentatious
sort. Dickie had tried not a few desperate adventures, had
conformed his thought and action to not a few glaring pat-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 605

terns, rushing to violences of extreme colour, extreme white
and black. All that had proved preeminently unsuccessful^
a most poisonous harvest of Dead Sea fruit. What, he began
to ask himself, if he made an effort to conform it to the
pattern actually presented to him — mellow, sun-visited, with
the brave red of weather stained masonry in it, blue and
silver of water and sky, lustre of sturdy hollies, as well as the
solemnity of leafless woods, finger of frost in the hollows,
and bleakness of snow ?

And, as he sat meditating thus, breathing the clear air, feel-
ing the tempered, yet genial, sun-heat, many questions began
to resolve themselves. He seemed to look, as down a long,,
cloudy vista — beyond the tumult and unruly clamour, the
wayward resistance and defiant sinning, the craven complain-
ings, the ever-repeated suspicions and misapprehensions of
man — away into the patient, unalterable purposes of God.
And looking, for the moment, into those purposes, he saw
this also — namely, that sorrow, pain, and death, are sweet to
whosoever dares, instead of fighting with, or flying from
them, to draw near, to examine closely, to inquire humbly,,
into their nature and their function. He began to perceive
that these three reputed enemies — hated and feared of all men
— are, after all, the fashioners and teachers of humanity, to
whom it is given to keep hearts pure, godly and compassion-
ate, to purge away the dross of pride, hardness, and arrogance,
to break the iron bands of ambition, self-love, and vanity, to
purify by endurance and by charity, welding together — as with
the cunning strokes of the master-craftsman's hammer — the
innumerable individual atoms into a corporate whole, of fair
form, of supreme excellence of proportion, the image and
example of a perfect brotherhood, of a republic more firmly
based and more beneficent than even that pictured by the
divine Plato himself — since that was consolidated by exclu-
sion, this by inclusion and pacification of those things which
men most dread. — Perceived that, without the guiding and
chastening of these three lovely terrors, humanity would, in-
deed, wax wanton, and this world become the merriest court
of hell, lust and corruption have it all their own foul way,
the flesh triumph, and all bestial things come forth to flaunt
themselves gaudily, greedily, without remonstrance and with-
out shame in the light of day. — Perceived in these three, a^

6o6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Trinity of Holy Spirits, bearing forever the message of the
divine mercy and forgiveness. — Perceived how, of necessity,
only the Man of Sorrows can truly be the Son of God.

And, perceiving all this, Richard's attitude towards his own
unhappy deformity began to suffer modification. The sordid,
yet extravagant, chap-book legend no longer outraged either
his moral or his scientific sense. He recalled his emotions in
the theatre at Naples when Morabita sang, remembering how
wholly welcome had then been to him that imagined approach-
ing-act of retributive justice. He recalled, too, the going
forth of love towards his supposed executioners which he had
experienced, his reverence for, and yearning towards, the dull-
coloured working-bees of the parterre. How he had longed
to be at one with them, partaker of their corporate action and
corporate strength ! How he had rejoiced in the conviction
that the final issues are subject to their ruling, that the claims
of want are stronger than those of wealth, that labour is more
honourable than sloth, intelligence than privilege, liberty more
abiding than tyranny — the idea of equality, of fellowship,
more excellent than the aristocratic idea, that of born master
and of born serf! And both that welcome of the accom-
plishment of a signal act of justice, and that desire to partici-
pate in the eternal strength of the children of labour as
against the ephemeral and fictitious strength of the children
of idleness and wealth, found strange confirmation in the
chap-book legend.

For it seemed to Richard that, taking all that singular mat-
ter both of prophecy and of cure simply — as believers take
some half-miraculous, scripture tale — he had already, in his
own person, in right of the physical uncomeliness of it, paid
part, at all events, of the price demanded by the Eternal Jus-
tice for his ancestors' sinning and for his own. It was not
needful that the bees should swarm and the dull-coloured mul-
titude revenge itself on the indolent, full-fed larvae peopling
the angular honey-cells, as far as he, Richard Calmady, was
concerned. That revenge had been taken long ago, in a mys-
terious and rather terrible manner, before his very birth.
While, in the stern denunciation, the adhering curse, of the
outraged and so-soon-to-be-childless mother, he found the just
and age-old protest, the patient faith in the eventual triumph
of the proletariat — of the defenseless poor as against the cal^

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 607

lous self-seeking and sensuality of the securely guarded rich.
By the fact of his deformity he was emancipated from the de-
lusions of his class, was made one, in right of the suffering
and humiliation of it, with the dull-coloured multitudes whose
corporate voice declares the ultimate verdict, who are the
architects and judges of civilisation, of art, even of religion,
even, in a degree, of nature herself. Salvation, according to
the sorry yet inspiring rhyme of the chap-book, was contin-
gent upon precisely this recognition of brotherhood with, and
practice of willing service towards, all maimed and sorrowful
creatures. His America was here or nowhere, his vocation
clearly indicated, his work immediate and close at hand.

How the Eternal Justice might see fit to deal with other
souls, why he had been singled out for so peculiar and con-
spicuous a fate, Richard did not pretend to say. All that had
become curiously unimportant to him. For he had ceased to
call that fate a cruel one. It had changed its aspect. It had
come suddenly to satisfy both his conscience and his imagina-
tion. With a movement at once of wonder and of deep-
seated thankfulness, he, for the first time, held out his hands
to it, accepting it as a comrade, pledging himself to use rather
than to spurn it. He looked at it steadfastly and, so looking,
found it no longer abhorrent but of mysterious virtue and
efficacy, endued with power to open the gates of a way, closed
to most men, into the heart of humanity, which, in a sense, is
nothing less than the heart of Almighty God Himself. It
was as though, like the saint of old, daring to kiss the scabs
and sores of the leper, he found himself gazing on the divine
lineaments of the risen Christ. And this brought to him a
sense of almost awed repose. It released him from the vicious
circle of self, of sharp-toothed disappointment and leaden-
heavy discouragement, in which he had so long fruitlessly
turned. He seemed consciously to slough off the foul and
ragged garment of the past and all its base, unprofitable mem-
ories, as the snake sloughs off her old skin in the warm May-
weather and glides forth, glittering, in a coat of untarnished,
silver mail. The whole complexion of his thought regarding
litis personal disfigurement was changed.

Not that he flattered himself the discomfort,. the daily vexa-
tion and impediment of it, had passed away. On the con-
tr^rv these very actually remained, and would remain to the

6o8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

end. And the consequences they entailed remained also, the
restrictions and deprivations they inflicted. They put many
things, dear to every sane and healthy-minded man, hopelessly
out of his reach, very much upon the shelf. Love and mar-
riage were shelved thus, in his opinion, let alone lesser and
more ephemeral joys. Only the ungrudging acceptance of
the denial of those joys, vi^hether small or great, was a vital
part of that idea to the evolution of which he now dedicated
himself — that Whole which, in process of its evolution, would
make for a sober and temperate well-being, formed on the
pattern, sober yet nobly spacious, cleanly, and wholesome, of
the sun-visited landscape there without. He had just got to
discipline himself into the harmony with the idea newly re-
vealed to him. And that, as he told himself, not without a
sense of the humour of the situation in certain aspects, meant
in more than one department, plenty of work ! — And he had
to spend himself and go on, through good report and ill,
■through gratitude and, if needs be, through abuse and detrac-
tion, still spending himself, actively, untiringly, in the effort
to make some one person — it hardly mattered whom, but for
choice, those who like himself had been treated unhandsomely
by nature or by accident — just a trifle happier day by day.

But, while Richard rested thus in the quiet sunshine, he lost
count of time. High-noon came and passed, finding and
leaving him in absorbed contemplation of his own thought.
At last a barking of dogs, and the sound of wheels away on
the north side of the house, broke up the silence. Then a
faint echo of voices, a boy's laughter in the great hall below.
Then footsteps, which he took to be Lady Calmady's, coming
lightly up the grand staircase. At the stair-head those foot-
steps paused for a little space, as though in indecision whither
to turn. And Richard, pushed by an impulse of considerate-
ness somewhat, it must be owned, new to him, called : —
" Mother, is that you ? Do you want me ? I'm here."
Whereat the footsteps came forward, in at the open door
and through the soft glory of the all-pervading sunshine, with
an effect of gentle urgency and haste. Katherine's gray, silk
pelisse was unfastened, showing the grey, silk gown, its float-
ing ribbons, pretty frills and flounces, beneath. Every detail
of her dress was very fresh and very finished, a demure dain-
tiness in it, from the topmost, gray plume and upstanding.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 609

velvet bow of her bonnet to the pretty shoes upon her feet.
Along with a lace handkerchief and her church books, she
carried a bunch of long-stalked violets. Her face was deli-
cately flushed, a great surprise, touching upon anxiety, temper-
ing the quick pleasure of her expression.

" My dearest," she said, " this is as delightful as it is un-
expected. What brings you here ? "

And Richard smiled at her without reserve, no longer as
though putting a force upon himself or of set purpose, but
naturally, spontaneously, as one who entertains pleasant
thoughts. He took her hand and kissed it with a certain
courtliness and reverent fervour.

"I came to look for something here," he said, "which I
have looked for at many times and in very various places, yet
never somehow managed to find."

But Katherine, at once tenderly charmed and rendered yet
more anxious by a quality in his manner and his speech un-
familiar to her, the purport of which she failed at once to
gauge, answered him literally.

" My dearest, why didn't you tell me ? I would have
looked for it before 1 went to church, and saved you the
trouble of the journey from the gallery here."

" Oh ! the journey wasn't bad for me, I rather enjoyed it,"
Dickie said. " And then to tell you the truth, you've spent
the better part of your dear life in looking for that same
something which I could never manage to find ! Poor, sweet
mother, no thanks to me, so far, that you haven't utterly worn
yourself out in the search for it." — He paused, and gazed
away out of the open casement. — '' But I have a good hope
that's all over and done with now, and that at last I've found
the thing myself."

And Katherine, still charmed, still anxious, looked down at
him wondering, for there was a perceptible undercurrent of
emotion beneath the lightness of his speech.

" However, all that will keep," he continued. — " How did
you enjoy your church ? Did dear old Julius distinguish
himself? How did he preach ? "

And Katherine, still wondering, again answered literally.

" Very beautifully," she said, " with an unusual force and
pathos. He took the congregation not a little by storm. He
fairly carried us away. He was eloquent, and that with a

6 10 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

simplicity which made one question whether he did not speak
out of some pressing personal experience." — Katherine's
manner was touched by a pretty edge of pique. — " Really I
believed I knew all about Julius and his doings by this time^
but it seems I don't ! I think I must find out. It would vex
me that anything should happen in which he needed sympathy,
and that I did not oflFer it. — His subject was the answer to
prayer and the fulfilment of prophecy — and how both come,
come surely and directly, yet often in so different a form to
that which, in our narrowness of vision and dulness of sense,
we anticipate, that we fail to recognise either the answer or the
fulfilment, and so miss the blessing they must needs bring,
and which is so richly, so preciously, ours if we had but the
wit to understand and lay hold of it."

Whereupon Richard smiled again.

"Yes," he said, " very probably Julius did speak out ot
personal experience, or rather vicarious experience. How--
ever, I don't think he need worry this time, at least I hope
not. The answer to prayer and fulfilment of prophecy, when
they're good enough to come along, don't always get the cold
shoulder." — Then his expression changed, hardened a little,
his lips growing thin and his jaw set. — " Look here, mother,"
he added, " I think perhaps I have been rather playing the fool
lately, since we came home. I propose to take to the ordi-
nary habits of civilised. Christian man again. If it doesn't
bother you, would you kindly let the servants know that I'm
coming down to luncheon ? "

" Oh ! my dearest, how stupid of me, I'm so grieved ! ''
Katherine cried. She sat down beside him on the cushioned
bench, dropping service books, handkerchief, and violets, in
the extremity of her gentle and apologetic distress. — " It
never occurred to me that you might like to come down.
The Newlands people came over to church, and I brought
Mary and the two boys back. Godfrey is over from Eton for
the Sunday, and little Dick has had a cold and has not gone
back to school yet. What can we do ? It would be lovely
to have you, and yet I don't quite know how I can send them
away again."

" But why on earth should they be sent away ? " Richard
said, touched and amused by her earnestness. " Mary's
always a dear. And I've been thinking lately I shouldn't

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 6u

mind seeing something of that younger boy. He is my god^
son, isn't he ? And Knott tells me he is curiously like you
and Uncle Roger. Yuu see it's about time to select an heir-
apparent for Brockhurst. Luckily I've a free hand. My
life's the last in the entail."

Then, looking at him, Lady Calmady's lips trembled a
little. Health had returned and with it his former good looks,
but matured, spiritualised, as it seemed to her just now. The
livid line of the scar had died out too, and was nearly gone.
And all this, taken in connection with his words just uttered,
affected her to so great and poignant a love, so great and
poignant a fear of losing him, that she dared not trust herself
to make any comment on those same words lest the flood-
gates of emotion should be opened and she should lose her
self-control.

" Very well, Dickie," she said, bowing her head. — Then
she added quickly, with a little gasp of renewed distress and
apology : — " But — but, oh ! dear me, Honoria is here too ! "

Whereat Richard laughed outright. He could not help it,
she was so vastly engaging in her distress.

" All right," he said, ^^ I am equal to accepting Honoria St»
Quentin into the bargain. In short, mother dear, I take over
the lot, and if anybody else turns up between now and two
o'clock I'll take them over as well. — Why, why, you dear
sweet, don't look so scared ! There's nothing to trouble
about. I'm not too good to live, never fear. On the con-^
trary, I am prepared to do quite a fine amount of living — only
on new and more modest lines perhaps. But we won't talk
about that just yet, please. We'll wait to give it a name
until we're a little more sure how it promises to work out."

CHAPTER VII

WHEREIN TWO ENEMIES ARE SEEN TO CRY QUITS

r^ODFREY ORMISTON scudded along the terrace, past
^"^^ the dining-room windows, at the top of his speed, and
Miss St. Quentin followed him at a hardly less unconventional
pace. Together they burst, by the small, arched side-doof.

6i2 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

into the lobby. There ensued discussion lively though brief.
Then, Winter setting wide the dining-room door in invitation,
sight of Honoria vi^as presented to the company assembled
within. — She, in brave attire of dark, red cloth, black braided
and befrogged, heavy, silk cords and knotted, dangling tassels
— head-gear to match, dark red and black, a tall, stiff aigrette
set at the side of it — in all producing a something delightfully
independent, soldierly, ruffling even, in her aspect, as she
pushed the black-haired, bright-faced, slim-made lad, her two
hands on his shoulders, before her into the room.

'^ May we come to luncheon as we are. Cousin Katherine ? "
she cried. " We're scandalously late, but we're also most
ferociously hungry and "

But here, although Lady Calmady turned on her a welcom-
ing and far from unjoyful countenance, she stopped dead,
while Godfrey incontinently gave vent to that which his
younger brother — sitting beside his mother, Mary Ormiston,
at table, on Richard Calmady's right — described m^entally as
''the most awful squawk." Which squawk, it may be added
— whatever its effect upon other members of the company —
as denoting involuntary and unceremonious descent from the
high places of thirteen-year-old, public-school omniscience on
the part of his elder, produced in eight-year-old Dick Ormis-
ton such overflowings of unqualified rapture that, for a good
two minutes, he had to forego assimilation of chocolate soujffiet^
and, slipping his hands beneath the table, squeeze them to-
gether just as hard as ever he could with both knees, to avoid
disgracing himself by emission of an ecstatic giggle. For
once he had got the whip hand of Godfrey ! — Having himself,
for the best part of an hour now, been conversant with interest-
ing developments, he found it richly diverting to behold his
big brother thus incontinently bowled over by sudden disclosure
of them. He repressed the giggle, with the help of squeezing
knees and a certain squirming all down his neat, little back,
but his blue eyes remained absolutely glued to Godfrey's
person, as the latter, recovering his presence of mind and
good manners, proceeded solemnly up to the head of the
table to greet his unlooked-for host.

Honoria, meanwhile, if guiltless of an audible squawk,
had been — as she subsequently reflected — potentially alarmingly
capable of some such primitive expression of feeling. For the

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 613

shock of surprise which she suffered was so forcible, that it
induced in her an absurd unreasoning instinct of flight. In-
deed, that had happened, or rather was in process of happen-
ing, which revolutionised all her outlook. For that the un-
seen presence, consciousness of which had come to be so
constant a quantity in her action and her thought, should thus
declare itself in visible form, be materialised, become concrete,
and that instantly, without prologue or preparation, projecting
itself wholesale — so to speak — into the comfortable common-
places of a Sunday luncheon — after her slightly uproarious
race home with a perfectly normal schoolboy, from morning
church too — affected her much as sudden intrusion of the
supernatural might. It modified all existing relations, intro-
ducing a new and, as yet, incalculable element. Nor had she
quite yet realised what power the unseen Richard Calmady^
these many years, had exercised over her imagination, until
Richard Calmady seen, was there evident, actually before her.
Then all the harsh judgments she had passed upon him, all
the disapproval of, and dislike she had felt towards, him, flashed
through her mind. And that matter too of his cancelled en-
gagement ! — The last time she had seen him was in the house
in Lowndes Square, on the night of Lady Louisa Barking's
great ball, standing — she could see all that now — it was as if
photographed upon her brain — always would be — and it turned
her a little sick. — Nevertheless it was impossible to pause any
longer. It would be ridiculous to fly, so she must stick it
out. That best of good Samaritans, Mary Ormiston, began
talking to Julius March across the length of the table.

" Oh dear, yes, of course," she was saying. " But I never
realised she was a sister of your old Oxford friend. I wish I
had. It would have been so pleasant to talk about you and
about home in that far country ! Her husband is in the Rifle
Brigade, and she really is a nice, dear woman. I saw a great
deal of her while we were at the Cape.'*

And so, under cover of Mary's kindly conversation. Miss
St. Quentin settled down into her lazy, swinging stride. Her
small head carried high, her pale, sensitive face very serious,
her straight eyebrows drawn together by concentration of pur-
pose, concentration of thought, she followed the boy up the
long room.

As she came towards him, Richard Calmady looked full at

6i4 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

her. His head was carried somewhat high too. His face was
very still. His eyes — with those curiously small pupils to
them — were very observant, in effect hiding rather than re-*
vealing his thought. His manner, as he held out his hand to
her, was courteous, even friendly, and yet, notwithstanding her
high and fearless spirit, Honoria — for the first time in her life
probably — felt afraid. And then she began to understand how
it came about that, whether he behaved well or ill, whether he
was good or bad, cruel or kind, seen or unseen even, Richard,
of necessity, could not but occupy a good deal of space in the
lives of all persons brought into close contact with him. For
she recognised in him a rather tremendous creature, self-con-
tained, not easily accessible, possessed of a larger portion than
most men of energy and resolution, possessed too — and this,
as she thought of it, again turned her a trifle sick — of an un-
usual capacity of suffering.

" I am ashamed of being so dreadfully late," she said as she
slipped into the vacant place on his left. — Godfrey Ormiston
was beyond her, next to Julius March. — Honoria was aware
that her voice sounded slightly unsteady, in part from her re-
cent scamper, in part from a queer emotion which seemed to
clutch at her throat. — " But we walked home over the fields
and by the Warren, and just in that boggy bit where you cross
the Welsh-road, Godfrey found the slot of a red-deer in the
snow, and naturally we both had to follow it up."

"Naturally," Richard said.

" I'm not so sure it was a red-deer, Honoria," the boy
broke in.

" Oh yes. It was," she declared as she helped herself to a
cutlet. " It couldn't have been anything else."

" Why not ? " Richard asked. He was interested by the
tone of assurance in which she spoke.

" Oh, well, the tracks were too big for a fallow-deer to be-
gin with. And then there's a difference, you can't mistake it
if you've ever compared the two, in the cleft of the hoof."

" And you have compared the two ? "

" Oh, certainly," Honoria answered. — She was beginning
to recover her nonchalance of manner and indolent slowness
of speech. " I lose no opportunity of acquiring odds and
ends of information. One never knows when they may
come in handy."

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 615

She looked at him as she spoke, and her upper iip shortened
and her eyes narrowed into a delightful smile — a smile, more-
over, which had the faintest trace of an asking of pardon in
it. And it struck Richard that there was in her expression
and bearing a transparent sincerity, and that her eyes — now
narrowed as she smiled— were not the clear, soft brown they
appeared at a distance to be, but an indefinable colour, com-
parable only to the dim, yet clear, green gloom which haunts
the under-spaces of an ilex grove upon a summer day. He
turned his head rather sharply. He did not want to think
about matters of that sort. He was grateful to this young
lady for the devoted care she had bestowed on his mother —
but, otherwise her presence was only a part of that daily dis-
cipline which must be cheerfully undertaken in obedience ta
the exigencies of his new and fair idea.

" Probably it is a deer that has broken out of Windsor
Great Park and traveled," he said. "They do that some-
times, you know."

But here small Dick Ormiston, whose spirits, lately pirouet-
ting on giddy heights of felicity, had suffered swift declension
bootwards at mention of his thrilling adventure in which, alas^
he had neither lot nor part, projected himself violently into
the conversational arena.

" Mother," he piped, his words tumbling one over the other
in his eagerness — " Mother, I expect it's the same deer that
grandpapa was talking about when Lord Shotover came over
to tea last Friday, and wanted to know if Honoria wasn't back
at Newlands again. And then he and grandpapa yarned, don't
you know. Because, Cousin Richard — it must have been
while you were away last year — the buckhounds met at
Bagshot and ran through Frimley and right across Spendle
Flats "

" No, they didn't. Cousin Richard," Godfrey interrupted.
" They ran through the bottom of Sandy field Lower Wood."

" But they lost — any way they lost. Cousin Richard," the
younger boy cried. — "You weren't there, Godfrey, so you
can't know what grandpapa said. He said they lost some-
where just into Brockhurst, and he told Lord Shotover how
they beat up the country for nearly a week, and how they
never found it, and had to give it up as a bad job and go home
again. And — and — Lord Shotover said, rotten bad sporty

6i6 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

stag-hunting, unless you get it on Exmoor, where they're not
carted and they don't saw their antlers off. He said meets of
the buckhounds ought to be called Stockbroker's Parade, that
was about all they amounted to. And so, Cousin Richard, I
think, — don't you, mother — that this must be that same deer ? "

Whereat the elder Dick's expression, which had grown
somewhat dark at the mention of Lord Shotover, brightened
sensibly again. And, for cause unknown, he looked at Ho-
noria, smiling amusedly, before saying to the very voluble
small sportsman : —

" To be sure, Dick. Your arguments are unanswerable,
convincingly sound. No reasonable man could have a doubt
about it ! Of course it's the same deer."

And so the luncheon finished gaily enough, though Miss
St. Quentin was conscious her contributions to the cultivation
of that same gaiety were but spasmodic. She dreaded the
conclusion of the meal, fearing lest then she might be called
upon to behold Richard Calmady once again, as she had be-
held him — now just on six years ago — in the half dismantled
house in Lowndes Square, on the night of Lady Louisa Bark-
ing's ball. And from that she shrank, not with her former
physical repulsion towards the man himself, but with the
moral repulsion of one compelled against his will to gaze upon
a pitifully cruel sight, the sufFering of which he Is powerless
to lessen or amend. The short, light-made crutches, lying on
the floor by the young man's chair, shocked her as the callous
exhibition of some unhappy prisoner's shackllng-Irons might.
It constituted an indignity offered to the Richard sitting here
beside her, so much as to think of, let alone look at, that same
Richard when on foot. Therefore it was with an oddly
mingled relief and sense of playing traitor, that she rose with
the rest of the little company and left him by himself. She
was thankful to escape, though all the while her Inherent loy-
alty tormented her with accusation of meanness, as of one
who deserts a comrade in distress.

But here the small Dick, to whom such complex refine-
ments of sensibility were as yet wholly foreign, created a di-
version by prancing round from the far side of the table and
forcibly '^-^izlng her hand. He was jealous of the large share
Godfrey had to-day secured of her society. He meant to
have his innings. So he rubbed his curly head against her

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 617

much braided elbow, butting her lovingly in the exuberance of
his affection as some nice, little ram-lamb might. But just as
they reached the door, through which Lady Calmady and
the rest of the party had already passed, the boy drew up
short.

" I say, hold on half a minute, Honoria, please," he said.

And then, turning round, his cheeks red as peonies, he
marched back to where Richard sat alone at the head of the
table.

" In case — in case, don't you know," he began, stuttering
in the excess of his excitement — " in case. Cousin Richard,
mummy didn't quite take in what you said at the beginning of
luncheon — you did mean for really that I was to come and
stay here in the summer holidays, and that you'd take me out,
don't you know, and show me your horses ? "

And to Honoria, glancing at them, there was a singular, and
almost tragic, comment on life in the likeness, yet unlikeness,
of those two faces. — The features almost identical, the same
blue eyes, the two heads alike in shape, each with the same
close-fitted, bright-brown cap of hair. But the boy's face
flushed, without afterthought or qualification of its eager hap-
piness— the man's colourless, full of reserve, almost alarm-
ingly self-contained and still.

Yet, when the elder Richard's answer came, it was alto-
gether gentle and kindly.

"Yes, most distinctly y^r really^ Dick," he said. "Let
there be no mistake about it. Let it be clearly understood I
want to have you here just as long, and just as often, as your
mother and father will spare you. I'll show you the horses,
never fear, and let you ride them too."
A — a — a real big one ? "

Just as big a one as you can straddle." Richard paused.
And I'll show you other things, if all goes well, which
I'm beginning to think — and perhaps you'll think so too some
day — are more important even than horses."

He put his hand under the boy's chin, tipped up the ruddy,
beaming, little face and kissed it.

" It's a compact," he said. — " Now cut along, old chap.
Don't you see you're keeping Miss St. Quentin waiting ? "

Whereupon the small Richard started soberly enough, be-
ing slightly impressed by something — he knew not quite what

iC

IC

6i8 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

— only that it made him feel awfully fond, somehow, of this
newly discovered cousin and namesake/-- But, about half-way
down the room, that promise of a horse, a thorough-bred, and
just as big as he could straddle, swept all before it, rendering
his spirits uncontrollably explosive. So he made a wild rush
and flung himself headlong upon the waiting Honoria.

" Oh ! you want to bear-fight, do you ? Two can play at
that game," she cried, " you young rascal ! "

Then without apparent effort, or diminution of her lazy
grace, the elder Richard saw her pick the boy up by his mid-
die, and, notwithstanding convulsive wrigglings on his part,
throw him across her shoulder and bear him bodily away
through the lobby, into the hall, and out of sight.

Hence it fell out that not until quite late that evening did
the moment so dreaded by Miss. St. Quentin actually arrive.
In furtherance of delay she practised a diplomacy not alto-
gether flattering to her self-respect, coming down rather late
for dinner, and retiring immediately after that meal to the
Gun-Room, under plea of correspondence which must be
posted at Farley in time for to-morrow's day mail. She was
even late for prayers in the chapel, so that, taking her accus-
tomed place next to Lady Calmady in the last but one of the
stalls upon the epistle-side, she found all the members of the
household, gentle and simple alike, already upon their knees.
The household mustered strong that night, a testimony, it may
be supposed, to feudal as much as to religious feeling. In the
seats immediately below her were an array of women-servants,
declining from the high dignities of Mrs. Reynolds the house-
keeper, the faithful Clara, and her own lanky and loyal north-
country woman Faulstich, to a very youthful scullery maid,
sitting just without the altar rails at the end of the long row.
Opposite were not only Winter, Bates the steward, Pow^ell,
Andrews, and the other men-servants, but Chaplin, heading a
detachment from the house stables, and — unexampled occur-
rence ! — Gnudi the Italian chef^ with his air of gentle and
philosophic melancholy and his anarchic sentiments in the-
ology and politics, liable, — these last — when enlarged on, to
cause much fluttering in the dove-cote of the housekeeper's
room. — " To hear Signor Gnudi talk sometimes made your
blood run cold. It seemed as if you couldn't be safe any-
where from those wicked foreign barricades and massacres,"

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 619

as Clara put it. And yet, in point of fact, no milder man
ever larded a woodcock or stuffed it with truffles.

Alone, behind all these, in the first of the row of stalls
with their carven spires and dark vaulted canopies, sat Rich-
ard Calmady, whom all his people had thus come forth si-
lently to welcome. But, through prayer and psalm and lesson
alike, as Miss St. Quentin noted, he remained immovable, to
her almost alarmingly cold and self-concentrated. Only once
he turned his head, leaning a little forward and lookmg to-
wards the purple, and silver, and fair, white flowers of the
altar, and the clear shining of the altar lights.

"Then shall the righteous answer him, saying. Lord, when
saw we thee an hungered and fed thee ? or thirsty and gave
thee drink ? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in ?
or naked and clothed thee ? Or when saw we thee sick, or
in prison, and came unto thee ? And the King shall answer
and say unto them. Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have
done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto me."

The words were given out by Julius March, not only with
an exquisite distinctness of enunciation, but with a ring of
assurance, of sustaining and thankful conviction. Richard
leaned back in his stall again, looking across at his mother.
While Honoria, taken with a sensitive fear of inquiring into
matters not rightfully hers to inquire into, hastily turned her
eyes upon her open prayer-book. They must have many
things to say to one another, that mother and son, as she di-
vined, to-day, — far be it from her to attempt to surprise their
confidence !

She rose from her knees, cutting her final petitions some-
what short, directly the last of the men-servants had filed out
of the chapel, and, crossing the Chapel-Room, a tall, pale
figure in her trailing, white, evening dress, she pulled back
the curtain of the oriel window, opened one of the curved,
many-paned casements and looked out. She was curiously
moved, very sensible of a deeper drama going forward around
her, going forward in her own thought — subtly modifying and
transmuting it — than she could at present either explain or
place. The night was cloudy and very mild. A soft, sob-
bing, westerly wind, with the smell of coming rain in it, sa-
luted her as she opened the casement. The last of the frost

620 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

must be gone, by now, even in the hollows — the snow wholly
departed also. The spring, though young and feeble yet,
puling like some ailing baby-child in the voice of that softly-
complaining, westerly wind, was here, very really present at
last. Honoria leaned her elbows on the stone window-ledge.
Her heart went out in strong emotion of tenderness towards
that moist wind which seemed to cry, as in a certain homeless-
ness, against her bare arms and bare neck. — " Inasmuch as ye
did it unto one of the least of these my brethren ''

But just then Katherine Calmady called to her, and that in
a sweet, if rather anxious, tone.

" Honoria, dear child, come here," she said. " Richard is
putting me through the longer catechism regarding those heath
fires in August year, and the state of the woods."

Then, as the youug lady approached her, Lady Calmady
laid one hand on her arm, looking up in quick and loving ap-
peal at the serious and slightly troubled face.

" My answers only reveal the woeful greatness of my ig-
norance. My geography has run mad. I am planting forests
in the midst of corn-fields, so Dickie assures me, and making
hay generally — as you, my dear, would say — of the map."

Still her eyes dwelt upon Honoria's in insistent and loving
appeal.

" Come," she said, " explain to him, and save me from
further exposition of my own ignorance."

Thus admonished the young lady sat down on the low
sofa beside Richard Calmady. As she did so Katherine rose
and moved away. Honoria determined to see only the young
man's broad shoulders, his irreproachable dress clothes, his
strangely still and very handsome face. But, since there was
no concealing rug to cover them, it was impossible that she
should long avoid also seeing his shortened and defective
limbs and oddly shod feet. And at that she winced and shrank
a little, for all her high spirit and inviolate, maidenly strength.

" Oh yes ! those fires ! " she said hurriedly. " There were
several — you remember, Cousm Katherine ? — or I dare say you
don't, for you were ill all the time. But the worst was on
Spendle Flats. You know that long three-cornered bit " — she
looked Richard bravely in the face again — '*• which lies between
the Portsmouth Road and our crossroad to Farley ? It runs
into a point just at the top of Star Hill."

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 621

"Yes, I know," Dickie said.

He had seen her wince. — Well, that wasn't wonderrul !
She could not very well do otherwise, if she had eyes in her
head. He did not blame her. And then, though It was not
easy to do so with entire serenity, this was precisely one of
those small unpleasant incidents which, in obedience to his new
code, he was bound to accept calmly, good-temperedly, just as
part of the day's work, in fact. He had done with malinger-
ing. He had done with the egoism of sulking and hiding —
even to the extent of a couvre-pieds. All right, here It was !
— Richard settled his shoulders squarely against the straight,
stuffed back of the Chippendale sofa, and talked on.

" It's a pity that bit is burnt," he said. " I haven't been
over that ground for nearly six years, of course. But I re-
member there were very good trees' there — a plantation at the
top end, just before you come to the big gravel-pits, and the
rest self-sown. Are they all gone ? "

" Licked as clean as the back of your hand," Honoria re-
plied, warming to her subject. " They hardly repaid felling
for firewood. It made me wretched. Some idiot threw down
a match, I suppose. There had been nearly a month's
drought, and the whole place was like so much tinder. There
was an easterly breeze too. You can imagine the blaze !
We hadn't the faintest chance. Poor, old lies lost his head
completely, and sat down with his feet in a dry ditch and wept.
There must be over two hundred acres of it. It's a dreadful
eyesore, perfectly barren and useless, but for a little sour grass
even a gipsy's donkey has to be hard up before he cares to
eat ! " — Aliss St. Quentin shifted her position with a certain
Impatience. " I can't bear to see the land doing no work,"
she said.

" Doing no work ? " Dickie inquired. He began to be in-
terested in the conversation from other than a purely practical
and local standpoint.

" Of course," she asserted. " The land has no more right
to lie idle than any of the rest of us — unless it's a bit of tilth
sweetening in fallow between two crops. That is reasonable
enough. But for the rest," she said, a certain brightness and
self- forgetting gaining on her — " let It contribute its share all
the while, like an honest citizen of the universe. Let it work,
most decidedly let it work."

622 SIR RICHARD CALMADY j

"And what about such trifles as the few hundred square 1

miles of desert or mountain range ? " Richard inquired, half ^

amused, half — and that rather unwillingly — charmed. " They |

are liable to be a thorn in the side of the — well, socialist." j

" Oh, I've no quarrel with them. They come under a j

different head." — Honoria's manner had ceased to be in any ^

degree embarrassed, though a slight perplexity came into her j

expression. For just then she remembered, somehow, her i

pacings of the station platform at Culoz, the salutation of the j

bleak, pure, evening wind from out the fastnesses of the Alps^ ■

and all her conversation there with her faithful admirer, Lu- j

dovic Quayle. And it occurred to her what singular contrast !

in sentiment that bleak evening wind offered to the mild, j

moist, westerly wind — complaint of the homeless baby,, j

Spring — which had just now cried against her bosom ! And !

again Honoria became conscious of being in contact, both in i

herself and in her surroundings, with more coercing, more \

vital drama than she could either interpret or place. Again \

something of fear invaded her, to combat which she hurried \

into speech. — " No, I haven't any quarrel with deserts and so ■

on," she repeated. " They're uncommonly useful things for j

mankind to knock its head against — invincible, unnegotiable, :

splendidly competent to teach humanity its place. You see i

we've grown not a little conceited — so at least it seems to me I

— on our evolutionary journey up from the primordial cell, j

We're too much inclined to forget we've developed soul quite '

comparatively recently, and, therefore, that there is probably ^

just as long a journey ahead of us — before we reach the ulti- \

mate of intellectual and spiritual development — as there is be- i

hind us physically from, say the parent ascidian, to you and \

me. And — and somehow" — Honoria's voice had become ;

full and sweet, and she looked straight at Dickie with a rare \

candour and simplicity — "somehow those big open spaces re- I

mind one of ali thit. They drive one's ineffectualness home ]

on one. They remind one that environment, that mechanical |

civilisation, all the short cuts of applied science, after all count l

for little and inevitably come to the place called st^p. And j

that braces one. It makes one the more eager after that -

which lies behind the material aspects of things, and to which {

these merely act as a veil." |

Honoria had bowed hwscif together. Her elbows were on J

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 62J

hwF Knees, her chin in her two hands, her charming face alighif
with ?. pure enthusiasm. And Richard watched her curiously.
His acquaintance with women was fairly comprehensive, but
this woman represented a type new to his experience. He
wanted to tolerate her merely, to regard her as an element in
his scheme of self-discipline. And it began to occur to him
that, trom some points of view, she knew as much about that,
as nidch about the idea inspiring it, as he did. He leaned him-
self back in the angle of the sofa, and clasped his hands be-
hind his head.

" All the same," he said, " I am afraid those burnt acres on
Spendle Flats are hardly extensive enough to afford an object
for me to knock my head against, and so enforce salutary re-
membrance of the limitations of human science. Possibly
that has already been sufficiently brought home to me in other
ways."

He paused a minute.

Honoria straightened herself up. Again she saw — whether
she would or no — those defective shortened limbs and oddly
shod feet. And again, somehow, that complaint of the moist
spring wind seemed to cry against her bare arms and neck, be-
getting an overwhelming pitifulness in her.

" So, since it's not necessary we should reserve it as an ob-
ject lesson in general inefFectualness, Miss St. Quentin, what
shall we do with it ? "

" Oh, plant," she said.

*' With the ubiquitous Scotchman ? "

"It wouldn't carry anything else, except along the bound-
aries. There you might put in a row of horn-beam and oak.
They always look rather nice against a background of firs. —
Only the stumps of the burnt trees ought to be stubbed."

" Let them be stubbed," Richard said.

" Where are you going to find the labour ? The estate is
very much under-manned."

" Import it," Richard said.

" No, no," Honoria answered, again warming to her sub-
ject. " I don't believe in imported labour. If you have men
by the week, they must lodge. And the lodger is as the ten
plaguef of Egypt in a village. If a man comes by the day,
he is tired and slack. His heart is not in his work. He
does as little as he can. Moreover, in either case, the wife

624 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

and children suffer. He's certain to take them home short
money. He's pretty safe, being tired in the one case, or, in
the other, on the loose, to drink."

Dickie's face gave. He laughed a little.

^' We seem to have come to a fine impasse ! " he remarked,
"Though humiliatingly small, that tract of burnt land must
clearly be kept to knock one's head against."

Honoria rose to her feet.

" Richard, I vi^ish you'd build," she said, in her earnestness
unconscious of the unceremonious character of her address.
" lies ought to have done that before now. But he is old and
timid, and his one idea has been to save. You knovi^ this
Brockhurst property alone would carry eight or ten more
families. There's plenty of work. It needn't be made. It is
there ready to hand. Give them good gardens, allotments if
you can, and leave to keep a pig. That's infinitely better
than extravagant wages. Root them down in the soil. Let
them love the place — tie them up to it "

" Your socialism is rather quaintly crossed with feudalism,
isn't it ? " Dickie remarked.

He drew himself forward, slipped down off the sofa, stood
upright. And then, indeed, the cruel disparity between his
stature and her own — for tall though she was, he, by right of
make and length of arm, should evidently have been by some
two or three inches the taller — and all the grotesqueness of
his deformity, were fully disclosed to Honoria. For the
second time that day, her tact, her presence of mind, her
ready speech, deserted her. She backed a little away from
him.

And Richard perceived that. It is not easy to be absolutely
philosophic. Something of his old anger revived towards Miss
St. Quentin. He shuffled forward a step or two, and, steady-
ing himself with one hand on the arm of the sofa, reached
down to pick up his crutches. But his grasp was not very
sure just then. He secured one. To his intense annoyance
the other escaped him, falling back on the floor with a rattle.
Then, instantly, before he could make effort to recover it,
Honoria's white figure swept down on one knee in front of
him. She laid hold of the crutch, gave it him silently, and
rose to her full height again, pale, gallant, stately, but with a
quivering of her lips and nostrils, and an amazement of regret

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 625

and pity in her eyes, which very certainly had never found
place there heretofore.

^'Thanks," Richard said. — He waited just a minute. He
too was amazed somehow. He needed to revise the position.
— " About those eight or ten happy families whom you wish
to root so firmly in the soil, and the housing of them — are you
busy to-morrow morning ? "

"Oh no — no" — Honoria declared, with rather unnecessary
emphasis.

Generosity should surely be met by generosity. Dickie
leaned his arm against the arm of the sofa, and looked up at
the speaker. Her transparent sincerity, her superb chastity —
he could call it by no other word — of manner and movement,
even of outline — the slight angularity of strong muscle as op-
posed to soft roundness of cushioned flesh — these arrested and
impressed him.

" I had Chifney up from the stables this afternoon and made
my peace with him," he said. " He was very full of your
praises, Honoria — for the cousinship may as well be acknowl-
edged between us, don't you think ? You have supplemented
my lapses in respect of him, as of a good deal else." — Richard
looked away to the door of Lady Calmady's bedroom. It
stood open, and Katherine came from within with some books,
and a silver candlestick, in her hands.

" My dears," she said, " do you know it grows very late ? "

" All right," he answered, " we're making out some plans
for to-morrow." — He looked at Honoria again. " Chifney en-
gaged he and Chaplin would find a horse, between them,
which could be trusted to — well — to put up with me," he
said. " I promised to go down and have breakfast with dear
Mrs. Chifney at the stables, but I can be back here by eleven.
Would you be inclined to come out with me then ? We
could ride over to that burnt land and have a poke round for
sites for your cottages."

" Oh yes, indeed, I can come," Honoria answered. Her
delightful smile beamed forth, and it had a new and very deli-
cate charm in it. For it so happened that the woman in her
whom — to use her own phrase — she had condemned to solitary
confinement in the back attic, beat very violently against her
prison door just then in attempt to escape.

Dear Cousin Katherine, good-night. Good-night, Rich-

u

626 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ard," she said hurriedly. — She went out of the room, lazuy,
slowly, down the black, polished staircase, across the great,
silent hall, and along the farther lobby. But she let the Gun-
Room door bang to behind her and flung herself down in the
armchair — in which, by the way, the old bull-dog had died a
year ago, broken-hearted by over long waiting for the home-
coming of his absent master. And then Honoria, though the
least tearful of women, wept — not in petulant anger, or with
the easy, luxuriously sentimental overflow common to feminine
humanity, but reluctantly, with hard, irregular sobs which
hurt, yet refused to be stifled, since the extreme limit of
emotional and mental endurance had been reached.

" Oh, it's fine ! " she said, half aloud. " I can see that it's
fine — but, dear God, is there no way out of it ? It's so
horribly, so unspeakably sad."

And Richard remained on into the small hours, sitting be-
fore the dying fire of the big hearth-place, at the eastern end
of the gallery. Mentally he audited his accounts, the profit
and loss of this day's doing, and, on the whole, the balance
showed upon the profit side. Verily it was only a day of
small things, of very humble ambitions, of far from world-
shaking successes ! Still four persons, he judged, he had made
a degree or so happier. — His mother rejoiced, though with
trembling as yet, at his return to the ordinary habits of the
ordinary man. — Sweet, dear thing, small wonder that she
trembled ! He had led her such a dance in the past, that any
new departure must give cause for anxious questionings.
Dickie sunk his head in his hands. — God forgive him, what
a dance he had led her ! — And Julius March was happier —
he, Richard, was pretty certain of that — since Julius could
not but understand that, in the present case at all events,
neither fulfilment of prophecy nor answer to prayer had been
disregarded. — And the hard-bitten, irascible, old trainer, Tom
Chifney, was happier — probably really the happiest of the lot
— since he demanded nothing more recondite and far-reaching
than restoration to favour, and due recognition of the im-
portance of his calling and of the merits of his horses. — And
nice, funny, voluble, little Dick Ormiston was happier too.
Richard's heart went out strangely to the dear little lad ! He
wondered if it would be too much to ask Mary and Roger to
give him the boy altogether? Then he put the thought from

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 627

him, judging it savoured of the selfishness, the exclusiveness,
and egoism, with which he had sworn to part company for-
ever.

He stretched his hand out over the arm of the chair, crav-
ing for some creature, warm, sentient, dumbly sympathetic, to
lay hold of. — He remembered there used to be a man down
near Alton, a hard-riding farmer, who bred bull-dogs — white
ones with black points, like Camp and Camp's forefathers.
He would tell Chifney to go down there and bespeak the two
best of the next litter of puppies. — Yes — he wanted a dog
again. It was foolish perhaps, but after all one did want
something, and, since other things were denied, a dog must do
— and he wanted one badly. — Yet the day had been a success
on the whole. He had been true to his code. Only — and
Richard shrugged his shoulders rather wearily — it had got to
be begun all over again to-morrow, and next day, and next —
an endless perspective of to-morrows. And the poor flesh,
with its many demands, its delicious and iniquitous passions,
its enchantments, its revelations, its adorable languors, its
drunken heats, must it have nothing, nothing at all ? Must
that whole side of things be ruled out forever ? — He had no
more desire for mistresses, God forbid — Helen, somehow, had
cleansed him of all possibility of that. And he would never
ask any woman to marry him. The sacrifice on her part
would be too great. — He thought of little Lady Constance. —
Simply, it was not right. — So, practically, the emotional joys
of life were reduced to this — they must consist solely in giving
— giving — giving — of time, sympathy, thought and money !
A far from ignoble programme no doubt, but a rather austere
one for a man of liberal tastes, of varied experience, and of
barely thirty. — And he was as strong as a bull now. He
knew that. He might live to be ninety. — -Yes, he thought he
would ask for little Dick Ormiston. The boy would be an
amusement and interest him. — And then suddenly the vision
of Honoria St. Quentin, in her red and black-braided gown,
with that air of something ruffling and soldierly about it,
whipping the small Dick up in her strong arms, throwing him
across her shoulder and bearing him off bodily, and of Ho-
noria later, her sensitive face all alight, as she discoursed of
the ultimate aim and purpose of life and of living, came be-
fore him. Above her white dress, he could see her white and

628 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

finely angular shoulders as she swept down to pick up that
wretched crutch. — Yes, she was a being of singular contrasts^
c^ remarkable capacity, both mental and practical ! And she
might have a heart — she might. Once or twice it had looked
rather like it. — But, after all, what did that matter ? The
feminine side of things was excluded. Besides he supposed
she was half engaged to Ludovic Quayle.

Dickie yawned. He was sleepy. His meditations became
unprofitable. He had best go to bed.

" And the devil fly away with all women, saving and ex-
cepting my well beloved mother," he said.

CHAPTER VIII

CONCERNING THE BROTHERHOOD FOUNDED BY RICHARD
CALMADY, AND OTHER MATTERS OF SOME INTEREST

TT was Still very sultry. All the windows of the red draw-
ing-room stood wide open. Outside the thunder rain
fell, straight as ramrods, in big globular drops, which spattered
upon the gray quarries and splashed on the pink and lilac,,
lemon-yellow, scarlet and orange of the pot plants, —
hydrangeas, pelargoniums, and early-flowering chrysan-
themums,— set, three deep, along the base of the house wall,
the whole length of the terrace front. The atmosphere was
thick. Masses of purple cloud, lurid light crowning their
summits, boiled up out of the southeast. But the worst of
the storm was already over, and the parched land, grateful for
the downpour of rain, exhaled a whiteness of smoke — as in
thanksgiving from ofF some altar of incense. On the grass
slopes of the near park a flight of rooks had alighted. They
stalked and strode over the withered turf with a self-impor-
tant, quaintly clerical air, seeking provender, but, so far, find-
ing none, since the moisture had not yet sufiiciently penetrated
the hardened soil for earth-worms and kindred creeping-
things to move surfacewards.

Within, the red drawing-room had suffered conspicuous
change. For, on Richard moving down-stairs to his old quar-
ters in the southwestern wing of the house, Lady Calmady

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 629

had judged it an act of love, rather than of desecration, to
restore this long-disused apartment to its former employment.
Adjoining the dining-room, — connecting this last with the
billiard-room, summer-parlour, and garden-hall, — this room was
convenient to assemble in before, and sit in for a while after,
meals. Richard would thereby be saved superfluous journeys
up-stairs. And this act of restitution, which was also in a
sense an act of penitence, once decided upon, Katherine car-
ried it forward with a certain gentle ardour, renewing crimson
carpets and hangings and disposing the furniture according to
its long-ago positions. The memory of what had once been
should remain forever here enshrined, but with the glad
colours of life, not the faded ones of unforgiven death upon
it. It satisfied her conscience to do this. For it appeared to
hey that so very much of good had been granted her of late,
so large a measure of peace and hope vouchsafed to her, that
it was but fitting she should bear testimony to her awareness
of all that by obliteration of the last outward sign of the re-
bellion of her sorrowful youth. The Richard of to-day,
homestaying, busy with much kindness, thoughtful of her
comfort, honouring her with delicate courtesies — which to
whoso receives them makes her womanhood a privilege rather
than a burden — yet teasing her not a little, too, in the security
of a fair and equal affection, bore such moving resemblance
to that other Richard, first master of her heart, that
Katherine could afford to cancel the cruelty of certain mem-
ories, retaining only the lovelier portion of them, and could
find a peculiar sweetness in frequentation of this room, for-
merly devoted wholly to a sense of injury and blackness of
hate.

And on the day in question, Katherine's presence exhaled a
specially tender brightness, even as the thirsty earth, refreshed
by the thunder rain, sent up a rare whiteness as of incense
smoke. For she had been somewhat anxious about Dickie lately.
To her sensitive observation of him, his virtue, his evenness of
temper, his reasonableness, had come to have in them a pa-
thetic element. He was lovely and pleasant in his ways. But
sometimes, when tired or off his guard, she had surprised an
expression on his face, a constrained patience of speech, even
of attitude, which made her fear he had given her but that
half of his confidence calculated to cheer, while he kept the

630 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

half calculated to sadden rather rigorously to himself. And,
in good truth, Richard did suffer somewhat at this period.
The first push of enthusiastic conviction had passed, while
his new manner of conduct and of thought had not yet ac-
quired the stability of habit. The tide was low. Shallows
and sand-bars disclosed themselves. He endured the tempta-
tions arising from the state known to saintly writers as " spirit-
ual dryness," and found those temptations of an inglorious
and wholly unheroic sort. And, though he held his peace,
Katherine feared for him — feared that the way he elected to
walk in was over-strait, and that, though resolution would
hold, health might be overstrained.

" My darling, you never grumble now," she had said to him
a few days back.

To which he answered : —

" Poor, dear mother, have I cheated you of one of your
few, small pleasures ? Was it so very delightful to listen to
that same grumbling ? "

" I begin to believe it was," Katherine declared. " It con-
ferred a unique distinction upon me, you see, because I had a
comfortable conviction you grumbled to nobody else. One
is jealous of distinction. Yes — I think I miss it, Dickie."

Whereupon he laughed and kissed her, and swore he'd
grumble fast enough if there was anything — which positively
there wasn't — to grumble about. AH of which, though it
charmed Katherine, appeased her anxiety but moderately.
The young man worked too hard. His opportunities of
amusement were too scant. Katherine cast about in thought,
and in prayer, for some lightening of his daily life, even if
such lightening should lessen the completeness of his depend-
ence upon herself. And it was just at this juncture that Miss
St. Qucntin wrote proposing to come to Brockhurst for a
week. She had not been there since the Whitsuntide recess.
She wrote from Ormiston, where she was staying on her way
south, after paying a round of country-house visits in Scot-
land. It was now late September. She would probably go
to Cairo for the winter with young Lady Tobermory — grand-
niece by marriage of her late godmother and benefactress—
whose lungs were pronounced to be badly touched. Might
she, therefore, come to Brockhurst to say good-bye ?

And to this proposed visit Richard offered no opposition.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 631

though he received the announcement of it without any
marked demonstration of pleasure. — Oh, by all means let her
come ! Of course it must be a pleasure to his mother to
have her. And he'd got on very well with her in the spring
— unquestionably he had. — Richard's expression was slightly
ironical. — But he did really like her? — Oh dear, yes, he liked
her exceedingly. She was quite curiously clever, and she was
sincere, and she was rather beautiful too, in her own style —
he had always thought that. By all means have her. — After
which conversation Richard went for a long ride, inspected
cottages in building at Sandyfield, visited a house, undergoing
extensive, internal alterations, which stands back from Gierke's
Green, about a hundred yards short of Appleyard, the saddler's
shop at Farley Row. He came in late. Unusual silence
held him during dinner. And Lady Calmady took herself to
task, reproaching herself with selfishness. Honoria was very
dear to her, and so, only too probably, she had overrated the
friendliness of Dickie's attitude towards the young lady.
But they had seemed to get on so extremely well in the spring,
and very fairly well at Whitsuntide ! Yet, perhaps, in that,
as in so much else, Richard put a constraint upon himself,
obeying conscience rather than inclination. Katherine was
perturbed. Nor had her perturbations suffered diminution
yesterday, upon Miss St. Quentin's arrival. Richard remained
unexpansive. To-day, however, matters had improved. Some-
thing— possibly the thunderstorm — seemed to have thawed
his coldness, broken up his reticence of manner. Therefore
Katherine gave thanks and moved with a lighter heart.

As for Miss St. Quentin herself, an innate gladsomeness
pervaded her aspect not easy to resist. Lady Calmady had
been sensible of it when the young lady first greeted her that
morning. It remained by her now, as she stood after lunch-
eon at one of the open windows, watching the up-rolling
thunder-cloud, the spattering raindrops, the quaintly solemn
behaviour of the stalking, striding rooks. Honoria was easily
entertained to-day. She felt well-disposed towards every liv-
ing creature. And the rooks diverted her extremely. Pro-
fanely they reminded her of certain archiepiscopal garden-
parties, with this improvement on the human variant, that
here wives and daughters also were condemned to decent
sables instead of being at liberty to array themselves accord-

632 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ing to self-Invented canons of remarkably defective taste.
But, though diverted, it must be owned she gave her attention
the more closely to all that outward drama of storm and rain
and to the antics of the rooks, because she was very con-
scious of the fact that Richard Calmady had followed her and
lis mother into the red drawing-room, and it hurt her — though
she had now, of necessity, witnessed it many times — it hurt,
it still very shrewdly distressed her, to see him walk. As she
heard the soft thud and shuffle of his onward progress, fol-
lowed by the little clatter of the crutches as he laid them
upon the floor beside his chair, the brightness died out of
Honoria's face. She registered sharp annoyance against her>-
self, for she had not anticipated that this would continue to
affect her so much. She supposed she had grown accustomed
to it during her last two visits to Brockhurst, and that, this
time, it would occasion her no shock. But the sadness of the
young man's deformity remained present as ever. The in-
dignity of It offended her. The desire by some, by any,
means to mitigate the woeful circumscription of liberty and
opportunity which it inflicted, wrought upon her almost pam-
fully. And so she looked very hard at the hungry anticking
rooks, both to secure time for recovery of her equanimity, and
also to spare Richard smallest suspicion that she avoided be-*
holding his advance and installation.

"We needn't start until four, mother," she heard him say.
'^ But I'm afraid it is clearing."

Honoria turned from the window-

" Yes, it is clearing," she remarked, '' incontestably clear*
ing ! You won't escape the Grimshott function after all."

"It's a nuisance having to go," Richard replied. "But
you see this is an old engagement. People are wonderfully
civil and kind. I wish they were less so. They waste one's
time. But it doesn't do to be ungracious, and we needn't
stay more than half an hour, need we, mother ? "

He looked up at Honoria.

" Don't you think, on the whole, you'd better come too ? '*
he said.

But the young lady shook her head smilingly. She stood
close beside Lady Calmady.

" Oh dear, no," she answered. " I am quite absolutely
certain I hadn't better come too."

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 633

Richard continued to look up at her.

" Half the county will be there. Everything will be richly^
comprehensively dull. Think of it. Do come," he repeated,,
" it would be so good for your soul."

" Oh, my soul's in the humour to be nobly careless of
personal advantage," Honoria replied. " It*s in a state of
almost perilously full-blown optimism regarding the security
of its own salvation to-day, somehow." — Her glance rested \
very sweetly upon Lady Calmady. — ^^ And then all the rest of
me — and not impossibly my soul has a word to say in that
connection too — cries out to go and tramp over the steaming
turf and breathe the scent of the fir woods again."

Honoria sat down lazily on the arm of a neighbouring easy-
chair, against the crimson cover of which her striped blue-and-
white, shirting dress showed excellently distinct and clear.
Richard's prolonged and quiet scrutiny oppressed her slightly,
necessitating change of attitude and place.

" And then," she continued, " I want to go down to the
paddocks and have a look at the yearlings. How are they
coming on ? Have you anything good ? "

" Two or three promising fillies. They're in the paddock
nearest the Long Water. You'll find them as quiet as sheep. .
But I'll ask you not to go in among the brood-mares and foals
unless Chifney is with you. They may be a bit savage and
shy, and it is not altogether safe for a lady."

He stretched out his hand, taking Lady Calmady's hand for
a moment.

" Dear mother, you look tired. You'll have to put up with
Grimshott. The weather's not going to let us off. Go and .
rest till we start."

And when, a few minutes later, Katherlne, departing, closed '
the door behind her, he addressed Miss St. Quentin again.

" How do you think my mother is ? "

" Beautifully well."

" Not worried ? "

" No," Honoria said.

" You are really quite contented about her, then ? "

The question both surprised and touched his hearer as ;
a friendly and gracious admission that she possessed certain .
rights.

"Oh dear, yes," she said. "I am more than contented

634 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

about her. No one can fail to be so who, loving her, sees her
now. There was just one thing she wanted. Now she has
it, and so all is well."

"What one thing ? " Dickie asked, with a hint of irony in
his manner and his voice.

" Why, you — you, Richard," Honoria said.

She drew herself up proudly, a little alarmed by, a little
defiant of, the directness of her own speech, perceiving, so
soon as she had uttered it, that it might be construed as in-
direct reproach. And to administer reproach had been very far
from her purpose. She fixed her eyes upon the domes of the
great oaks, crowning an outstanding knoll at the far end of the
lime avenue. The foliage of them, deep green shading to
russet, was arrestingly solid and metallic, offering a rather
magnificent scheme of stormy colour taken in connection with
the hot purple of the uprolling cloud. Framed by the stone
work of the open window, the whole presented a fine picture
in the manner of Salvator Rosa. A few, bright raindrops
splashed and splattered, and the thunder growled far away in
the north. The atmosphere was heavy. For a time neither
spoke. Then Honoria said, gently, as one asking a favour : —

" Richard, will you tell me about that home of yours ?
Cousin Katherine was speaking of it to me last night."

And it seemed to her his thought must have journeyed to
some far distance, and found difficulty in returning thence, it
was so long before he answered her, while his face had become
set, and showed colourless as wax against the surrounding
crimson of the room.

" Oh, the home ! " he exclaimed, shrugging his shoulders just
perceptibly. " It doesn't amount to very much. My mother
in her dear unwisdom of faith and hope magnifies the value
of it. It's just an idle man's fad."

" A fad with an uncommon amount of backbone to it,
apparently."

" That depends on its eventual success. It's a thing to be
judged not by intentions but by results."

" What made you think of it ? "

Richard looked full at her, spreading out his hands, and
again shrugging his shoulders, slightly. Again Miss St.
Quentin accused herself of a defect of tact.

" Isn't it rather obvious why I should think of it ? " he

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 635:

asked. " It seemed to me that, in a very mild and limited
degree, it was calculated to meet a want." — He smiled upon
her, quite sweet-temperedly, yet once more there was a flavour
of irony in his tone. — " Of course hideous creatures and dis-
abled creatures are an eyesore. We pity, but we look the
other way. I quite accept that. They are a nuisance, since
they are a standing witness to the fact that things here below,,
very far from always work smoothly and well, and that there
are disasters beyond the power of applied science to put right.
The ordinary human being doesn't covet to be forcibly re-
minded of that by means of a living object lesson."

Richard shifted his position, clasped his hands behind his;
head. He had begun speaking without idea of self-revelation^
but the relief of speech, after long self-repression, took him,,
goading him on. Old strains of feeling, kept under by con-
scious exercise of will, asserted themselves. He asked neither
sympathy nor help. He simply called from off those shallows
and sand-bars laid bare by the ebbing tide of kis first enthusi-
asm. He protested, wearied by the spiritual dryness which
had caused all effort to prove so joyless of late. To have
sought relief in words before his mother would have been un-
pardonable, he held. She had borne enough from him in the
past, and more than enough. But to permit it himself in the
presence of this young, strong, capable woman of the world^
was very different. She came out of the swing of society and
of affairs, of large interests in politics and m thought. She
would go back into those again very shortly^ so what did it
matter ? She captivated him and incensed him alike. His re-
lation to her had been so fertile of contradictions — at once
singularly superficial and fugitive, and singularly vital. He
did not care to analyse his own feelings in respect of her.
He had, so he told himself, never quite cared to do that. She
had wounded his pride shrewdly at times, still he had un-
questioning faith in her power of comprehending his meaning:
as she sat there, graceful, long-limbed, indolent, in her pale
dress, looking towards the window, the light on her face re-
vealing the fine squareness of the chiselling of her profile, of
her jaw, her nostril, and brow. She appeared so free of spirit^
so untrammeled, so excellently exalted above all that is wcak^
craven, smirched by impurity, capable of baseness and deceit \

" But naturally with me the case is different/' he went onj»

636 ' SIR RICHARD CALMADY

his voice growing deeper, his utterance more measured. "It
is futile to resent being reminded of that which, in point of
fact, you never forget. It's childish for the pot to call the
kettle black. And so I came to the conclusion, a few months
ago, to put away all such childishness, and set myself to gain
whatever advantage I could from — well — from my own black-

ness."

Honoria turned her head, averting her face yet further.
Richard could only see the outline of her cheek. She had
never before heard him make so direct allusion to his own
deformity, and it frightened her a little. Her heart beat
curiously quick. For it was to her as though he compelled
her to draw near and penetrate a region in which, gazing
thitherward questioningly from afar, she had divined the
residence of stern and intimate miseries, inalienable, unre-
mittent, taking their rise in an almost alarming distance of
time and fundamentality of cause.

" You see, in plain English," he said, " I look at all such
unhappy beings from the inside, not, as the rest of you do,
merely from the out. I belong to them and they to me. It
is not an altogether flattering connection. Only recently, I
am afraid, have I had the honesty to acknowledge it ! But,
having once done so, it seems only reasonable to look up the
members of my unlucky family and take care of them, and if
possible put them through — not on the lines of a charitable
institution, which must inevitably be a rather mechanical,
stepmother kind of arrangement at best, but on the lines of
family affection, of personal friendship."

He paused a moment.

" Does that strike you as too unpractical and fantastic, con-
trary to sound, philanthropic principle and practice ? "

Honoria shook her head.

^' It is based on a higher law than any of modern organised
philanthropy," she said, and her voice had a queer unsteadiness
in it. " It goes back to the Gospels — to the matter of giving
your life for your friend."

As she spoke, Honoria rose. She went across and stood at
the window. Furtively she dabbed her pocket handkerchief
against her eyes.

" Well, after all, one must give one's life for something or
other, you know," Dickie remarked, " or the d^s would be-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 637

come a little too intolerably dull, and then one might be
tempted to make short work of life altogether/

Honoria returned to her chair and sat down — this time not
on the arm of it but in ordinary conventional fashion. She
faced Richard. He observed that her eyelids were slightly
swollen, slightly red. This gave an extraordinary effect of
gentleness to her expression.

" How do you find them — the members of your sad family ? '*
she asked.

" Oh, in all sorts of ways and of places ! Knott swears it
is contrary to reason, an interfering with the beneficent
tendency of nature to kill off the unfit. Yet he works like a
horse to help me — even talks of giving up his practice and
moving to Farley Row, so as to be near the headquarters of
my establishment. The lease of a rather charming, old house
there fell in this year. Fortunately the tenant did not want
to renew, so I am having that made comfortable for them/*

Richard smiled. A greater sense of well-being animated
him. Out of the world she had come, back into the world
she would go again. Meanwhile she was nobly fair to look
upon, she was pure of heart, intercourse with her made for the
justification of high purposes and unselfish experiment — so he
thought.

" I am growing as keen on bagging a fine cripple as another
man might on bagging a fine tiger," he said. " The whole
matter at bottom, I suspect, turns on the instinct of sport.
— Only the week before last I acquired a rather terribly
superior specimen. A lad of eighteen, a factory hand in West-
church. He was caught by some loose gearing and swept
into the machinery. What is left of him — if it survives,,
which it had much better not, and I can't help hoping it will,,
he is such a plucky, sweet-natured fellow — will require a nurse-
for the rest of its life. So I am pushing on the work at f^arleyy,
that the home may be ready when we get him out of hospitaL
— By the way, I must go to-morrow and stir up the workmen..
Do you care to come and see it all, if the afternoon is fine and
not too hot ? "

And Honoria agreed. Nor did she shrink when Richard
slipping out of his chair picked up his crutches. — " I suppose
it is about time to get ready for the Grimshott function," he^
said. — She walked beside him to the door, opened it and passed

^38 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

into the neutral-tinted, tapestry-hung dining-room. There
the young man waited a moment. He looked not at her but
straight before him.

" Honoria," he said suddenly, almost harshly, "you and
Helen de Vallorbes used to be great friends. For more than
a year I have held no communication with her, except through
my lawyers. Can you tell me anything about her ? "

Miss St. Quentin hesitated.

"Nothing very direct — I heard from de Vallorbes about
three months ago. I don't think I am faithless — Indeed I
held on to her as long as I could, Richard ! I am not
squeamish, and then I always prefer to stand by the woman.
But whatever de Vallorbes may have been, he pulled himself
together rather admirably from the time he went into the army.
He wanted to keep straight and to live respectably. And — I
hate to say so — but she treated him a little too flagrantly.
And then — and then "

Honoria put her hands over her eyes and shook back her
head angrily.

" It wasn't one man, Richard."

Dickie went white to the lips.

" I know that," he said.

He moved forward a few steps.

" Who is it now ? Destournelle ? "

" Oh no — no " — Honoria said. " Some Russian — from the
-extreme east — Kazan, I think — prince, millionaire, drunken
savage. But he adores her. He squanders money upon her,
surrounds her with barbaric state. This is de Vallorbes' ver-
sion of the affair. The scandal is open and notorious. But
she and her prince together have great power. Something
will eventually be arranged in the way of a marriage. She
will not come back."

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 639

CHAPTER IX ^

TELLING HOWj LUDOVIC QUAYLE AND HONORIA ST. QUENTIN
WATCHEI^ THE TROUT RISE IN THE LONG WATER

i

Come hourland a half later Miss St. Quentin passed down
^ the flight pf stone steps, leading from the southern end of
the terrace to i the grass slopes of the park. Arrived at the
lowest step sh? gathered the skirt of her dress up over one
arm, thereby securing greater freedom of movement, and dis-
playing a straidbt length of pink and white petticoat. Thus
prepared she f^ed forth over the still smoking turf. The
storm had passed, but the atmosphere remained thick and
humid. A certain opulence of colour obtained in the land-
scape. The hejbs in the grass, wild-thyme, wild-balm, and
star-flowered caiiomile, smelt strongly aromatic as she trod
them under foot, while the beds of bracken, dried and yellowed
by the drought, jave off a sharp, woody scent.

Usually, wherl thus alone and in contact with nature, such
matters claimed iHonoria's whole attention, ministering to her
love of earth-lot and of Mother Earth — producing in her
silent worship C those primitive deities who at once preside
over and inhabit he waste-land and the tilth, the untamed for-
est and the pastues where heavy-uddered, sweet-breathed cows,
lie in the deep, readow grass, the garden ground, all pleasant,
orchard places, ad the broad promise of the waving crops.
But this afterno n, although the colour, odour, warmth, and
all the many voii^s praising the refreshment of the rain, were
sensibly present to her, Honoria's thought failed to be en-
grossed by them, f or she was in process of worshipping younger
and more companionate deities, sadder, because more human,
ones, whose offi ; lies not with Nature in her eternal repose
and fecundity bi: with man in his eternal failure and unrest.
Not august Cere, giver of the golden harvest-fields, or fierce
Cybele, the god ess of the many paps, but spare, brown-
habited St. Fran^ serving his brethren with bleeding hands
and feet, held eipire over her meditations. — In imagination

640 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

she saw — saw with only too lively realisation of detail — that
•eighteen-year-old lad, in the factory at Westchurch, drawn
up — all the unspent hopes and pleasures of his young man-
hood active in him — by the loose gearing, into the merciless
vortex of revolving wheels, and there, without preparation,
without pause of warning, without any dignity of shouting
multitude, of arena or of stake, martyred — converted in a few
horrible seconds from health and wholeness into a formless
lump of human waste. And up and down the land, as she
reflected, wherever the great systems of trade and labour,
which build up the mechanical and material prosperity of our
day, go forward, kindred things happen — let alcne question of
all those persons who are born into the world ilready injured,
«or bearing the seeds of foul and disfiguring ciseases in their
organs and their blood. — Verily Richard Calm^dy's sad family
was a rather terribly large one, well calculatec to maintain its
numbers, even to increase ! For neither thi z^q of human
sacrifice nor of cannibalism is really over, ncr is the practice
of these limited to savage peoples in distant Imds or far-away
isles of the sea. They form the basis actuall/, though in dif-
fering of outward aspect, of all existing civlisations, just as
they formed the basis of all past civilisation: — a basis, more-
over, perpetually recemented and relaid. Ani, as she consid-
•ered — being courageous and fair-minded — r w^as inevitable
that this should be so, unthinkable that it shoild be otherwise,
^since it made, at least indirectly, for the prosprity of the ma-
jority and development of the race. — Ccisidering which
— the apparently cruel paradox and irony of it — Honoria
swung down past the scattered hawthorns, hick with ruddy
fruit, across the fragrant herbs and short, svL»et turf, through
the straggling fern-brakes, which impeded he progress, pluck-
ing at her skirts, careless of the rich colour nd ample beauty
outspread before her.

But soon, as a bird after describing far-rarxing circles drops
at hst upon the from at-first-determined spc, so her thought
seltled down, with relief yet in a way unwlingly — and that
not out of any lingering repulsion, but rathr from a certain
proud modesty and self-respect — upon Richrd Calmady him-
self. Not only did he apprehend all this/ar more clearly,
more intimately, than she could. — Had he nt spoken of the
advantages of a certain blackness ?— Honori's vision became

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 641

somewhat indistinct. — But he set out to deal with it in a prac-
tical manner. And in this connection she began to understand
how it had come about that through years of ingratitude and
neglect, and of loose-living, on his part, his mother could stili
remain patient, could endure, and supremely love. For be-
hind the obvious, the almost coarse, tragedy and consequent
appeal of the man's deformity, there was the further appeal of
something very admirable in the man himself, for the emer-
gence and due blossoming of which it would be very possible,,
very worth while, for whoso once recognised its existence to-
wait. John Knott had been right in his estimate of Richards
Ludovic Quayle had been right. Lady Calmady had beert
right. — Honoria had begun to believe that, even before Richard
had come forth from his self-imposed seclusion, in the spring.
The belief had increased during her subsequent intercourse
with him, had been reinforced during her few days' visit at
Whitsuntide. Yet, until now, she had never freely and openly
admitted it. She wondered why ? And then hastily she put
such wondering from her. Again a certain proud modesty
held her back. She did not want to think of herself in rela-
tion to him, or of him in relation to herself. She wished, for
a reason she refused to define, to exclude the personal elements
Doing that she could permit herself larger latitude of admira-
tion. His acknowledgment of fellowship with, and obliga-
tion of friendship towards, all victims of physical disaster
kindled her enthusiasm. She perceived that it was contrary ta
the man's natural arrogance, natural revolt against the humili-
ation put upon him — a rather superb overcoming, in shoEt,^of
nature by grace. Nor was it the outgrowth of any morbid of
sentimental emotion. It had no tincture of the hysteric ele-
ment. It took its rise in conviction and in experiment. For
Richard, though still young, struck her as remarkably mature^
He had lived his life, sinned his sins — she did not doubt that —
suffered unusual sorrows, bought his experience in the open
market and at a sufficiently high price. And this was the re-
sult ! It pleased her imagination by its essential unworldli-
ness, its idealism and individuality of outlook. She went
back on her earlier judgment of him, first formulated as a
complaint, — he was strong, whether for good or evil — now
unselfishly for good — and Honoria, being herself among the
strong, supremely valued and welcomed strengths And sa it

642 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

happened that the tone of her meditations altered, being in-
creasingly attuned to a serious, but very real congratulation.
For she perceived that the tragedy of human life also consti-
tutes the magnificence of human life, since it affords, and al-
ways must afford, supreme opportunity of heroism.

She had traversed the open space of turf, and come to the
tall, iron hurdles enclosing the paddock. She folded her arms
on the topmost bar of the iron gate and stood there. She
wanted to rest a little in these thoughts that had come to her.
She was not quite sure of them as yet. But, if they meant
anything, if they were other than mere rhetoric, they must
mean a very great deal, into harmony with which it would be
necessary to bring her thought upon many other subjects.
She was conscious of an excitement, a reaching out towards
some but-half-disclosed glory, some new and very exquisite
fulness of life. But was it new, after all ? Was it not
rather the at-last-permitted activity of faculties and sensi-
bilities hitherto refused development, voluntarily, perhaps
cowardly, held in check and repressed ? She appeared to be
making acquaintance with unexpected depths of apprehension
and emotion in herself. And this, for cause unknown, brought
her into more lively commerce with her immediate surround-
ings and the sentiment of them. Her eyes rested on them
questioningly, as though they might afford a tally to, perhaps
an explanation of, the strange, yet lovely emotion which had
invaded her.

Here in the valley, notwithstanding the recent drought, the
grass was lush. Across the paddock, just within the circuit
of the far railings, a grove of large beech trees broke the ex-
panse of living green. Beyond, seen beneath their down-
sweeping branches, the surface of the Long Water repeated
the hot purple, the dun-colour and silver-pink, of the sky.
On the opposite slope, extending from the elm avenue to the
outlying masses of the woods and upward to the line of oaks
which run parallel with the park palings, were cornlands.
The wheat, a red-gold, was already for the most part bound
in shocks. A company of women, wearing lilac and pink
sunbunnets and all-round, blue, linen aprons faded by frequent
washing to a fine clearness of tone, came down over the blond
stubble. They carried, in little baskets and shining tins, tea
for the white-shirted harvesters who were busy setting up the

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 643

storm-fallen sheaves. They laughed and talked together, and
their voices came to Honoria u^ith a pleasant quality of sound.
Tu^o stumbling baby-children, hand in hand, followed them,
as did a small, white-and-tan, spotted dog. One woman was
bareheaded and wore a black bodice, which gave a singular
value to her figure amid the all-obtaining yellow of the corn.

The scene in its simple and homely charm held the poetry
of that happier side of labour, of that most ancient of all in-
dustries— the husbandman's — and of the generous giving of
the soil. Set in a frame of opulently coloured woodland and
sky, the stately red-brick and freestone house crowning the
high land and looking forth upon it all, the whole formed, to
Honoria's thinking, a very noble picture. And then, of a
sudden, in the midst of her quiet enjoyment of it and a ten-
derness which the sight of it somehow begot in her, Honoria
was seized by sharp, unreasoning regret that she must so
soon leave it. Unreasoning regret that she had engaged to
go abroad this winter, with poor, pretty, frivolous, young Lady
Tobermory — spoilt child of society and of wealth — now half-
crazed, rendered desperate, by the fear that disease, which had
laid a threatening finger on her, might lay its whole hand cut-
ting short her playtime and breaking her many toys. Of any-
thing other than toys and playtime she had no conception. —
'^ Those brutes of doctors tell Tobermory I must give up low
gowns," she wrote. " And I adore my neck and shoulders.
Every one always has admired them. It makes me utterly
miserable to cover them up. And now that I am thinner I
could have my gowns cut lower than ever, nearly down to my
waist, which makes it all the more intolerable. I ; went to
Dessaix about it, went over to Paris on purpose, though
Tobermory was wild at my traveling in the heat. He — Des-
saix, I mean, not poor T. — was just as nice as possible, and
promised to invent new styles. Still, of course, I must look
dowdy at night in a high gown. Everybody does. I shall
feel exactly like our clergyman's wife at Ellerhay, when she
comes to dine with us at Christmas and Easter and once in
the summer. I refuse to have her oftener than that. She
has a long back and about fourteen children, which she seems
to think a great credit to her. I don't, as they are uglv, and
she is dreadfullv poor. She wears her Sunday silk with lace
wound about, don't you know, but wound tight. That means

644 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

full dress. I am buying some lace, Duchesse at three and a
half guineas a yard. I suppose I shall come to winding that
•of an evening. Then I shall look like her. It makes me
•cry dreadfully, and, as I tell Tobermory, that is worse for me
than any number of lungs. Darling H., if you really love
«nc in the least, bring nothing but high gowns. Perhaps I
(mayn't mind quite so much if I never see you in a low one.'*
— There had been much more to the same effect, pathetic in
its rnadeqaiacy and egoism. Only, as Honoria reflected, that is a
:style of pathos dangerously liable to pall upon one. She
•.sighed, for the prospect of spending the winter participating
in the frivolities, and striving to restrain the indiscretions of
this little, damaged butterfly, did not smile upon her. She
might have stayed on here, stayed on at Brockhurst, worked
over the dear place as she had so often done before — helping
Lady Calmady. Why had she promised ? — Well — because
she had been rather restless, unsettled, and at loose ends of
late

Whereupon the young lady bent down and unfastened the
padlock with a certain decision of movement, closed the gate,
relocking it carefully behind her, and started off across the
deep grass of the paddock, her pale face very serious, her
small head held high. She would keep faith with Evelyn
Tobermory. Of course she would keep faith with her. It
was not only a matter of honour, but of expediency. It was
much, very much better to go. Yet whence this sudden heat
proceeded, and why the Egyptian journey assumed suddenly
such paramount desirability, she carefully did not stay to in-
quire— an omission not, perhaps, without significance.

The half-dozen dainty fillies, meanwhile, who had eyed her
shyly from their station beneath the beech trees, trotted gently
towards her with friendly whinnyings, their fine ears pricked,
their long tails carried well away in a sweeping curve. Ho-
noria went on to meet them. She was glad of something to
-occupy her hands, some outside, concrete thing to occupy her
thought. She took the foremost, a dark bay, by the nose strap
<)f its kather head-stall, patted the beast's sleek neck, looked
ante its prominent, heavy-lidded eyes, — the blue film over the
Tclvct-like iris and pupil of them giving a singular softness of
<ffect, — drew down the fine, aristocratic head, and kissed the
little >star where the hair turned in the centre of the smooth.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 645

hard forehead. It was as perfectly bred as she was herself —
so clean, so fresh, that to touch it was wholly pleasant ! Then
she backed away from it, holding it at arm's-length, noting
how every line of its limbs and body was graceful and har-
monious, full of the purpose of easy strength, easy freedom
of movement. That it was a trifle blown out in barrel, from
being at grass, only gave its contours an added suavity. It
was a lovely beast, a delicious beast ! Honoria smiled upoa
it, talked to, patted and coaxed it. While another young
beauty, waxing brave, pushed its black muzzle under her arm,,
and lipped at her jacket pockets in search of bread and of
apples. And, these good things once discovered^ the rest ©f
the drove came about her, civilly, a trifle proudly,, as befitted
such fine ladies, with no pushings and bustlings of vulgar
greed. And they charmed her. She was very much at one
with them. She fed them fearlessly, thrusting one aside in
favour of another, giving each reward in due turn. She
passed her hands down over their slender limbs. The warm
colours and the gloss of them were pleasant to her eyes. And
they smelt sweet, as did the trampled grass beneath their un-
shod hoofs. For a while the human problem — its tragedy^
magnificence, inadequacy alike — ceased to trouble her. The
poetry of these beautiful, innocent, clean-feeding beasts was^
for the moment, sufficient in and by itself.

But, even while she thus played with and rejoiced in them,
remembrance of their owner came back to her, his maiming,
as against their perfection of finish, the lamentable disparity
between his physical equipment and theirs. Honoria's ex-
pression lost its nonchalant gaiety. She pushed her gentle,
equine comrades away to left and right, not that they ceased
to please but that the human problem and the tragedy of it
once more became dominant. She walked on across the pad-
dock rapidly, while the fillies, forming up behind her, followed
in single file treading a sinuous pathway through the grass,
the foremost one still pushing its black muzzle, now and
again, under her elbow and nibbling insinuatingly at her
empty jacket pockets. — If only that horrible misfortune had

not befallen Richard Calmady ! If — if . But then, had

it not befallen him, would he ever have been excited to so ad-
mirable efix)rt, would he ever have attained so absorbing and
vigorous a personality as he actualJy had ? Again her thought

640 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

turned on itself, to provocation of momentary impatience.—
Honoria unfastened the second padlock with a return of her
former decision. — There were conclusions she wished in-
stinctively to avoid, from which she instinctively desired es-
cape. She forced aside the all-too-affectionate, bay filly who
crowded upon her, shot back the bar of the gate and relocked
it. Then, once again, she kissed the pretty beast on the fore-
head as it stretched its neck over the top of the gate.

" Good-bye, dear lass," she said. " Win your races and,
when the time comes, drop foals as handsome as yourself, and
thank your stars you're under orders, and so have small chance
to muddle your affairs — as with your good looks, my dear, you
most assuredly would — like all the rest of us."

With which excellent advice she swung away down the last
twenty yards of the avenue and out on to the roadway of the
red-brick and freestone bridge. Here, in the open above the
water, the air was sensibly fresher. From the paddock the
deserted fillies whinnied to her. The voices of the harvesters
came cheerily from the cornland. The men sat in the blond
stubble, backed by a range of upstanding sheaves. The
women, bright in those frail blues, clear pinks, and lilacs,
knelt serving their meal. She of the black bodice stood apart,
her hands upon her hips, looking towards the bridge and its
solitary occupant. The tan-and-white, spotted dog ran to and
fro chasing field-mice and yapped. The baby children stag-
gered after it, uttering excited squeakings and cries. The
lower cloud had parted in the west, disclosing an upper
stratum of pale gold, which widened upward and outward as
the minutes passed. Save immediately below, in the shadow
of the bridge, this found reflection in the water, overlaying it
as with the blond of the stubble and warmer tones of the
sheaves. Honoria sat down sideways on the coping of the
parapet. She watched the moor-hens, dark of plumage, a
splash of fiery orange on their jaunty, little heads, swim out
with restless, jerky motion from the edge of the reed-beds and
break up the shining surface with diverging lines of rippling,
brown shadow. In the shade cast by the bridge, trout rose at
the dancing gnats and flies. She could see them rush upward
through the brown water. Sometimes they leapt clear of
it, exposing their silver bellies, pink-spotted sides, and the
olive-green of their backs. They dropped again with a

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 647

flop, and rings circled outward from the place of their disap-
pearing.

All this Honoria saw, but dreamily, pensively. She realised,
as never before, that, much as she might love this place and
the life of it, she was a guest only, a pilgrim and sojourner.
The completeness of her own independence ceased to please.
— " Me this unchartered freedom tires." As she quoted the
line, Honoria smiled. These were, indeed, new aspects of
herself! Where would they carry her, both in thought and
in action ? It was a little alarming to contemplate that.
And then her pensiveness increased, a strange nostalgia taking
her — amounting almost to physical pain — for that same but —
half-disclosed glory, that same new and very exquisite fulness
of life, apprehension of which had lately been vouchsafed to
her. If she could remain very still and undisturbed, if she
could empty her consciousness of all else, bend her whole will
to an act at once of determination and of reception, perhaps,
it would be given her clearly to see and understand. The
idealist, the mystic, were very present in Honoria just then.
She fixed her eyes upon the shining surface of the water. A
conviction grew upon her that, could she maintain a certain
mental and emotional equilibrium, something of permanent
and very vital importance must take place.

Suddenly she heard footsteps upon the gravel of the road-
way. She started, turned deliberately, holding in check the
agitation which possessed her, to find herself confronted by
the tall, preeminently modern and mundane, figure of Ludovic
Quayle. Honoria gave herself a little shake of uncontrollable
impatience. For less than twopence-halfpenny she could
have given the very gentlemanlike intruder a shake too ! He
let her down with a bump, so to speak, from regions myste-
rious and supernal, to regions altogether social and of this
world worldly. And yet she knew that such feelings were not
a little hard and unjust as entertained towards poor Mr.
Quayle.

The young man, in any case, was happily ignorant of hav-
ing offended. He sauntered out on to the bridge, hat in hand,
his head a trifle on one side, his long neck directed slightly
forward, his expression that of polite and intimate amusement
— but whether amusement at his own, or his fellow-creatures*
expense, it would have been diflicult to declare.

648 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"At last, T find you, my dear Miss St. Quentin," he said.
" And I have sought for you as for lost treasure. Forgive a
biblical form of address — a reminiscence merely of my father's
morning ministrations to my unmarried sisters, the footmen,
and the maids. He reads them the most surprising little his-
tories at times, w^hich make me positively blush — but that's a
detail. To account for my invasion of your idyllic solitude —
I learned incidentally you proposed coming here from Ormis-
ton this week. I thought I would venture on an early attempt
to find you. But I drew the house blank, though assisted by
Winter — the terrace also blank. Then from the troco-ground
I beheld that which looked promising, coquetting with Dickie's
yearlings. So I followed on to know — my father and the
maids again — followed on to — to my reward."

Mr. Quayle stood directly in front of her. He spoke with
admirable urbanity, yet with even greater rapidity than usual.
His beautifully formed mouth pursed itself up between the
sentences, with that effect of indulgent superiority which was
at once so attractive and so excessively provoking. But, for
all that, Honoria perceived that, for once in his life, the young
man was distinctly, not to say acutely, nervous.

"The reward will be limited I'm afraid," she replied, "for
my temper is unaccountably out of sorts this afternoon."

*' And, if one may make bold to inquire, why out of sorts,
dear Miss St. Quentin ? "

He sat down on the parapet near her, crossed his legs, and
fell to nursing his left knee. The woman of the black bodice
went up across the pale stubble to her companions. She
talked to them, nodding her head in the direction of the bridge.

" I have promised to do a certain thing, and having
promised, of course I must do it."

Honoria looked away towards the harvesters up there among
jthe gold of the corn.

••" And yet, now I have committed myself, thinking it over
"1 find I dislike doing it warmly.'*

"The statement of the case is just a trifle vague," Mr.

-Quayle remarked. " But — if one may brave a suggestion —

supersede a first duty by a second and, of course, a greater.

With a little exercise of imagination, a little good-will, a little

.assistance from a true friend thrown in perhaps, it is generally

-quite possible to manage that, I think."

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 649

**' And you are prepared to play the part of the true friend ? "

"Undoubtedly/'

" Then go to Cairo for the winter with Evelyn Tober-
mory. You must take no low gowns — ah ! poor little soul, it
is pathetic, though — she's forbidden to wear them. And — let
me stay here ! " Honoria said.

Ludovic gazed at his hands as they clasped his knee, then
he looked sideways at his companion.

" Here, meaning — meaning Brockhurst, dear Miss St.
Quentin ? " he asked very sweetly.

" Meaning England," she declared.

" England ? — ah ! really. That pleases me better. Pa-
triotism is an excellent virtue. The remark is not a wholly
-original one, but it comes in handy just now, all the same."

The young lady's head went up. Her face straightened.
She was displeased. Turning sideways, she leaned both
iiands on the stonework and stared down into the water.
But speedily she repented.

"See how the fish rise," she said. "It really is a pity one
hasn't a fly-rod."

" I was under the impression you once told me that you
objected to taking life, except in self-defense or for purposes
of commissariat. The trout would almost certainly be
muddy. And I am quite unconscious of being exposed to any
danger — at least from the trout."

Miss St. Quentin kept her eyes fixed upon the water.

" I told you my temper was out of sorts," she said.

" Is that a warning ? " Ludovic inquired, with the utmost
.mildness.

Honoria was busy feeling in her jacket pockets. At the
bottom of them a few crumbs remained. She emptied these
on to the surface of the water, by the simple expedient of
turning the pockets inside out.

" I know nothing about warnings," she said. " I state a
iplain fact. You can make of it what you please."

The young man rose leisurely from his place, sauntered
across the roadway, and stood with his back to her, looking
down the valley. The harvesters, their meal finished, moved
away towards the further side of the great corn-field. The
women followed them slowly, gleaning as they went. It was
very quiet. And again there came to Honoris that ache of

650 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

longing for the but-half-disclosed glory and fulness of life.
It was there, an actuality — could she but find it, had she but
the courage and the wit. Then, from the open moorland be-
yond the park palings, came the sound of horses trotting
sharply. Ludovic Quayle turned and recrossed the road.
He smiled, but his superfine manner, his effect of slight im-
pertinence were, for the moment, in abeyance.

" Miss St. Quentin," he said, " what is the use of fencing
any longer ? I have done that which I engaged to do, namely,
displayed the patience of innumerable asses. And — if I may
be pardoned mentioning such a thing — the years pass. Really
they do. And I seem to get no forwarder ! My position be-
comes slightly ludicrous."

" I know it, I know it ! " Honoria cried penitently.

" That I am ludicrous ? "

" No, no," she protested, " that I have been unreasonable
and traded on your forbearance, that I have done wrong in
allowing you to wait."

" That you could not very well help," he said, " since I
chose to wait. And, indeed, I greatly preferred waiting as
long as there seemed to be a hope there was something — any-
thing, in short — to wait for."

" Ah ! but that is precisely what I have never been sure
about myself — whether there really was anything to wait for
or not."

She sat straight on the coping of the parapet again. Her
face bore the most engaging expression. There was a certain
softness in her aspect to-day. She was less of a youth, a
comrade, so It seemed to Mr. Quayle, more distinctly, more
consciously a woman. But now, to the sound of trotting
horse-hoofs was added that of wheels. With a clang the
park gates were thrown open.

" And are you still uncertain ? In the back of your mind
is there still a trifle of doubt ? — If so, give me the benefit of
it," the young man pleaded, half laughingly, half brokenly.

A carriage passed under the gray archway of the red-brick
and freestone lodges. Rapidly it came on down the wide,
smooth, string-coloured road — a space of neatly kept turf on
cither side — under the shade of the heavy-foliaged elm trees.
Mr. Quayle glanced at it, and paused with raised eyebrows.

"I call you to witness that I do not swear, dear Miss St.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 651

Quentin, though men have been known to become blasphe-
mous on slighter provocation than this," he said. " Hou^-
evcr, the rather violently-approaching interruption u^ill be soon
over, I hope and believe ; since the driving is that of Richard
Calmady of Brockhurst when his temper — like your own —
being somewhat out of sorts, he, as Jehu the son of Nimshi
of old — my father's morning ministrations to the maids again
— driveth furiously."

Then, with an air of humorous resignation, his mouth
working a little, his long neck directed forward as in mildly-
surprised inquiry, he stood watching the approaching mail-
phaeton. The wheels of it made a hollow rumbling, the
tramp of the horses was impetuous, the pole-chains rattled, as
it swung out on to the bridge and drew up. The grooms
whipped down and ran round to the horses' heads. And
these stood, a little extended, still and rigid as of bronze, the
red of their open nostrils and the silver mounting of their
harness very noticeable. Lady Calmady called to Mr. Quayle.
The young man passed round at the back of the carriage, and,
standing on the far side of the roadway, talked with her.

Honoria St. Quentin remained sitting on the parapet of the
bridge.

A singular disinclination to risk any movement had come
upon her. Not the present situation in relation to Ludovic
Quayle, but that other situation of the but-half-disclosed glory,
the new and exquisite fulness of life oppressed her, penetra-
ting her whole being to the point of physical weakness.
Questioningly, yet with entire unself-consciousness, she
looked up at Richard Calmady. And he, from the exalted
height of the driving-seat, looked down at her. A dark,
cloth rug was wrapped tight round him from the waist down-
ward. It concealed the high driving-iron against which his
feet rested. It concealed the strap which steadied him in his
place. His person appeared finely proportioned. His head
and face were surprisingly handsome seen thus from below —
though it must be conceded the expression of the latter was
very far from angelic.

" You were well advised to stay at home^ Honoria," he
said. There was a grating tone in his voice.

" The function was even more distinguished for dulness
than you expected ? "

652 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

"On the contrary, it was not in the least dull. It was
actively objectionable, ingeniously unpleasant. Whereas
this "

His face softened a little. He glanced at the golden v/ater
and cornland, the lush green of the paddock, the rich, massive
colouring of woodland and sky. Honoria glanced at it like-
wise, and, so doing, rose to her feet. That nostalgia of
things new and glorious ached in her. Yet the pain of it had
a strange and intimate charm, making it unlike any pain she
had ever yet felt. It hurt her very really, it made her weak^
yet she would not have had it cease.

"Yes, it is all very lovely, isn't it ? " she said.

She laid her hand on the folded leather of the carriage hood.
Again she looked up,

" It is a good deal to have this — always — your own, to
come back to, Richard."

She spoke sadly, almost unwillingly. Dickie did not an-
swer, but he looked down, a certain violence and energy very
evident in him, his blue eyes hard, and, in the depth of them^
desolate as the sky of a winter night. Calmly, yet in a way
desperately, as those who dare inquiry beyond the range of
permitted human speech, the young man and woman looked
at one another. Lady Calmady's sweet voice, meanwhile,
went on in kindly question. Ludovic Quayle's in well-
placed, slightly elaborate answer. The near horse threw back
its head and the pole-chains rattled smartly. — Honoria's lips
parted, but the words, if words indeed there were, died in her
throat. She raised her hands, as though putting a tangible
and actual presence away from her. She did not change
colour, but for the moment her delicate features appeared
thickened, as by a rush of blood. She was almost plain^
Yet the effect was inexpressibly touching. It was as though
she had received some mysterious injury which she was dumb^
incapable to express. She let her hands drop at her sides^
turned away and walked to the far end of the bridge.

Suddenly Richard's voice came to her, aggressive, curt.

" Look out, Ludovic — stand clear of the wheel."

The horses sprang forward, the grooms scrambled up at the
back, and the carriage swung away from the brightness of the
open to the gloom of the avenue and up the long hill to the
house.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 653

Mr. Quayle contemplated it for a minute or so and then,
with an air of amused toleration, he followed Miss St.
Quentin across the bridge.

" Poor, dear Dickie Calmady, poor, dear Dickie ! " he said.
*' He attempts the impossible. P'ails to attain it — as a matter of
course, and, meanwhile, misses the possible — equally as a matter
of course. It is all very magnificent, no doubt, but it is also
not a little uncomfortable, at times, for other people. — How-
ever that trifle of criticism is, after all, beside the mark. Now
that the whirlwind has ceased. Miss St. Quentin, may the still,
small voice of my own aflfairs presume to make itself "

But there he stopped abruptly.

" My dear friend," he asked in quick anxiety, " what is the
matter ? Pardon me, but what on earth has happened to you ? "

For Honoria leaned both elbows on the low, carved pillar
terminating the masonry of the parapet. She covered her
face with her hands. And, incontestably, she shuddered
queerly from head to foot.

" Wait half a second," she said. In a stifled voice. " It's
nothing — Vm all right."

Slowly she raised herself, and took a long breath. Then
she turned to her faithful lover, showing him a brave, if some-
what drawn and tired countenance.

" Ludovic," she said gently, " don't, don't please let us talk
any more about all that. And don't, I entreat you, wait any
longer. If there was any uncertainty, if there was a doubt in
the back of my mind, it's gone. Forgive me — this must
sound brutal — but there is no more doubt. I can't marry you.
1 am sorry, horribly sorry — for you have been as charming to
mc as a man could be — but I shall never be able to marry
you."

Mr. Quayle's expression retained its sweetness, even its
effect of amusement, though his lips quivered, and his eyelids
were a little red.

"I do not come up to the requirements of the grand pas-
sion ? " he said. " Alas ! poor me "

"No, no, it isn't that," Honoria protested.

" Ah, then," — he paused, with an air of extraordinary intelli-
gence— " Perhaps some one else does ? "

"Yes," she said simply, " I don't like it, but it's there, and
so I've got to go through with it — some one else does."

6s4 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

" In that case it is indeed hopeless ! I give it up," he
cried.

He moved aside and stood gazing at the rising trout in the
golden-brown water. Then he raised his head sharply, as in
obedience to a thought suddenly occurring to him, and gazed
at Brockhurst House. The brightness of the western sky
found reflection in its many windows. A noble cheerfulness
seemed to pervade it, as it crowned the hillside, amid its
gardens and far-ranging woods.

" By all that's " — Mr. Quayle began. But he repressed
the exclamation, and his expression was wholly friendly as he
returned to Miss St. Quentin.

" Good-bye," he said. — " I am glad, honestly glad, you
have found the grand passion, though the object of it can't, in
the first blush of the affair be altogether persona grata to my-
self. But, to show that really I have a little root of magna-
nimity in me, I am quite prepared to undertake a winter at
Cairo, plus Evelyn Tobemory and minus low dresses, if that
will enable you to stay on here — I mean in England, — of
course."

He pursed up his beautiful mouth, he carried his head on
one side with the liveliest effect of provocation, as he held the
young lady's hand while bidding her farewell.

" Out of my heart I hope you will be very happy," he
said.

" I shall never be anything but Honoria St. Quentin," she
answered rather hastily. Then she softened, forgiving him. —
" Oh ! why," she said, " why will you make me quarrel with
you just now, just at the last ? "

"Because — because — " Mr. Quayle's voice broke, though
his superior smile remained to him. — " I think I will not pro-
long the interview," he said. "To be frank with you, dear
Miss St. Quentin, I am about as miserable as is consonant
with complete sanity and excellent health. I do not propose
to blow my brains out, but I think — yes, thanks — you appre-
ciate the desirability of that course of action too ? — I think it
is about time I went,"

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 655

CHAPTER X

CONCERNING A DAY OF HONEST WARFARE AND A SUNSET
HARBINGER NOT OF THE NIGHT BUT OF THE DAWN

I ^HAT episode, upon the bridge spanning the Long Water,
brought Richard would-be saint, Richard pilgrim along
the great white road which leads onward to Perfection, into
lively collision with Richard the natural man, not to mention
Richard the "wild bull in a net." These opposing forces
engaged battle, with the consequence that the carriage horses
took the hill at a rather breakneck pace. Not that Dickie
touched them, but that, he being vibrant, they felt his mood
<iown the length of the reins and responded to it.

" Ludovic need hardly have been in such a prodigious
hurry," he broke out. " He might have allowed one a few
days' grace. It was a defect of taste to come over immedi-
ately— but then all that family's taste is liable to lapses."

Promptly he repented, ashamed both of his anger and such
self-revealing expression of it.

"I dare say it's all for the best though. Better a thing
should be nipped in the bud than in the blossom. And this
puts it all on a right footing. One might easily drift into
depending too much upon Honoria. I own I was dangerously
near doing that this spring. I don't mind telling you so
now, mother, because this, you see, disposes finally of the
matter."

His voice contended oddly with the noise of the wheels,
rattle of the pole-chains, pounding of the hoofs of the pulling
horses. The sentences came to Lady Calmady's ears dis-
jointed, difficult to follow and interpret. Therefore she
answered slightly at random.

" My dearest, I could have kept her longer in the spring if
I had only known," she said, a disquieting suspicion of lost
opportunity assailing her. " But, from certain things which
you said, I thought you preferred our being alone."

" So I did. I wanted her to go because I wanted her to
stay. Do you see ? "

656 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

••^ Ah, yes ! I see," Katherine replied. And at that moment^
it must be conceded, her sentiments were not conspicuously
pacific towards her faithful adherent, Mr. Quayle.

"We've a good many interests in common,'' Dickie went
on, " and there seemed a chance of one's settling down into
a rather charming friendship with her. It was a beguiling
prospect. And for that very reason, it was best she should
depart. The prospect, in all its beguilingness, renewed itself
to-day after luncheon." — He paused, handling the plunging
horses. — " And so after all Ludovic shall be reckoned wel-
come. For, as I say, I might have come to depend on her-
And one's a fool — I ought to have learnt that salutary lesson
by this time — a rank fool, to depend on anybody, or anything,
save oneself, simply and solely oneself" — his tone softened —
" and upon you, most dear and long-sufFering mother. — There-
fore the dream of friendship goes overboard after all, along
with the rest of one's little illusions. And every illusion
one rids oneself of is so much to the good. It lightens the
ship. It lessens the chances of sinking. Clearly it is so
much pure gain."

That evening, pleading — unexampled occurrence in her
case — a headache as excuse. Miss St. Quentin did not put in
an appearance at dinner. Nor did Richard put in an appear-
ance at breakfast next morning. At an early hour he had re-
ceived a communication earnestly requesting his presence at
the Westchurch Infirmary. His mission promised to be a
melancholy one, yet he was not sorry for the demand made by
it upon his time and thought. For, notwithstanding the phil-
osophic tone he had adopted with Lady Calmady in speaking
of that friendship which, if not nipped in the bud, might
have reached perils of too luxuriant blossoming, the would-be
saint and the natural man, the pilgrim on the highroad to
Perfection and that very inconvenient animal "the wild bull
in a net," kept up warfare within Richard Calmady. They
were hard at it even yet, when, in the fair freshness of the
September morning — the grasses and hedge-fruit, the wild
flowers, and the low-growing, tangled coppices by the road-
side, still heavy with dew — he drove over to Westchurch.
The day was bright, with flying cloud and a westerly breeze.
The dust was laid, and the atmosphere, cleared by the storm
of the preceding afternoon, had a smack of autumn in it. It

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 657

was one of those delicious, yet distracting, days when the sea
calls, and when whosoever loves seafaring grows restless,
must seek movement, seek the open, strain his eyes towards
the margin of the land — be the coast-line never so far distant
— tormented by desire for sight of the blue water, and the
strong and naked joys of the mighty ridge and furrow where
go the gallant ships.

With the upspringing of the wind at dawn, that calling of
the sea had made itself heard to Richard. At first it suggested
only the practical temptation of putting the Reprieve into
commission, and engaging Lady Calmady to go forth with him
on a three or four months' cruise. But that, as he speedily
convinced himself, was but a pitifully cheap expedient, a shirk-
ing of voluntarily assumed responsibility, a childish cheating
of discontent, rather than an honestly attempted cure of it.
If cure was to be achieved, the canker must be excised, boldly
cut out, not overlaid merely by some trifle of partially con-
cealing plaster. For he knew well enough — as all sea-lovers
know — and, as he drove through the dappled sunlight and
shadow, frankly admitted — that though the sea itself very
actually and really called, yet its calling was the voice and
symbol of much over and above itself. For in it speaks the
eternal necessity of going forward, that hunger and thirst for
the absolute and ultimate which drives every human creature
whose heart and soul and intellect are truly animate. And to
him, just now, it spoke more particularly of the natural in-
stincts of his manhood — of ambition, of passion, of headlong
desire of sensation, excitement, adventure, of just all that, in
fact, which he had forsworn, had agreed with himself to cast
aside and forget. And, thinking of this, suspicion assailed him
that forswearing had been slightly insincere and perfunctory.
He accused himself of nourishing the belief that giving, he
would also receive, — and that in kind, — while that any sacri-
fice which he offered would be returned to him doubled in
value. Casting his bread upon the waters, he accused himself
of having expected to find it, not " after many days," but im-
mediately— a full baker's dozen ready to hand in his pocket.
His motives had not been wholly pure. Actually, though not
at the time consciously, he had assayed to strike a bargain with
the Almighty.

Just as he reached the top pf th^ long, straight hill leading

658 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

down into Westchurch, Richard arrived at these unflattering
conclusions. On either side the road, upon the yellow surface
of which the sunlight played through the tossing leaves of the
plane trees, were villas of very varied and hybrid styles of
architecture. They were, for the most part, smothered in
creepers, and set in gardens gay with blossom. Below lay the
sprawling, red-brick town blotted with purple shadow. A
black canal meandered through the heart of it, crossed by
mean, humpbacked bridges. The huge, amorphous buildings
of its railway station — engine sheds, goods warehouses, trailing
of swiftly dispersed white smoke — the grime and clamour of
all that, its factory buildings and tall chimneys, were very
evident, as were the pale towers of its churches. And beyond
the ugly, pushing, industrial commonplace of it, striking a
very different note, the blue ribbon of the still youthful
Thames, backed by high-lying chalk-lands fringed with hang-
ing woods, traversed a stretch of flat, green meadows. Rich-
ard's eyes rested upon the scene absently, since thought just
now had more empire over him than any outward seeing.
For he perceived that he must cleanse himself yet further of
self-seeking. Those words, " if thou wilt be perfect sell that
thou hast and give to the poor, and follow thou Me," have
not a material and objective significance merely. They deal
with each personal desire, even the apparently most legitimate
— with each indulgence of personal feeling, even the
apparently most innocent — with the inward attitude and the
atmosphere of the mind even more closely than with outward
action and conduct. And so Richard reached the conclusion
that he must strip himself yet nearer to the bone. He musr
digest the harsh truth that virtue is its own reward in tl^
sense that it is its only reward, and must look for nothing be-
yond that. He had grown slack of late, seduced by visions
of pleasant things permitted most men but to him forbidden,
and wearied, too, by the length of the way and inevitable
monotony of it now first heat of enthusiasm had evaporated.
Well — it was all very simple. He must just re-dedicate him-
self. And in this stern and chastened frame of mind he drove
through the bustle of the country town — Saturday, market
day, its streets unusually alive — nodding to an acquaintance
here and there in passing, two or three of his tenant farmers,
Mr. Cathcart of Newlands in on county business, Goodall

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 659

the octogenarian miller from Parson's Holt, and Lemuel
Image, the brewer, bursting out of an obviously new suit of
very showy tweeds. Then, at the main door of the Infirmary,
helped by the stalwart, hospital porter, he got down from the
dog-cart, and subsequently — raked by curious eyes, saluted by
hardly repressed tittering from the out-patients waiting en queue
for admission to the dispensary — he made his slow way along
the bare, vault-like, stone passage to the accident ward, in the
far corner of which a bed was shut off from the rest by an
arrangement of screens and of curtains.

And it was in the same chastened frame of mind that, some
four or five hours later, Dickie entered the dining-room at
Brockhurst. The two ladies had nearly finished luncheon and
were about to rise from the table. Lady Calmady greeted him
very gladly, but abstained from inquiry as to his doings or
from comment on the lateness of the hour, since experience
had long ago taught her that of all known animals man is the
one of whom it is least profitable for woman to ask questions.
He was here at home, alive, intact, her eyes were rejoiced by
the sight of him, that was sufficient. If he had anything to
tell her, no doubt he would tell it later. For the rest, she
had something to tell him, but that too must wait till time and
circumstance were propitious, since the conveying of it in-
volved delicate diplomacies. It must be handled lightly. For
the life of her she must avoid all appearance of eagerness, all
appearance of attaching serious importance to the communica-
tion. Lady Calmady had learned, this morning, that Honoria
St. Quentin did not propose to marry Ludovic Quayle. The
young lady, whose charming nonchalance was curiously in
eclipse to-day, had given her to understand so much, but very
briefly, the subject evidently being rather painful to her. She
was silent and a little distrait ; but she was also very gentle,
displaying a disposition to follow Katherine about wherever
she went, and a pretty zeal in doing small, odd jobs for her.
Katherine was touched and tenderly amused by her manner,
which was as that of a charming child coveting assurance that
it need not be ashamed of itself, and that it has not really done
anything naughty ! But Katherine sighed too, watching this
strong, graceful, capable creature ; for, if things had been
otherwise with Dickie, how thankfully she would have given
the keeping of his future into this woman's hands ! She had

66o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

ceased to be jealous even of her son's love. Gladly, grate-
fully, would she have shared that love, accepting the second
place, if only — but all that was beyond possibility of hope.
Still the friendship of which he had spoken somewhat bitterly
yesterday — poor darling — remained. Ludovic Quayle's pre-
tensions— she felt very pitifully towards that accomplished
gentleman, all his good qualities had started into high relief!
— but, his pretensions no longer barring the way to that friend-
ship, she pledged herself to work for the promotion of it.
Dickie was too severe in self-repression, was over-strained in
stoicism ; and, ignoring the fact that in his fixity of purpose,
his exaggerations of self-abnegation, he proved himself very
much her own son, she determined secretly, cautiously, lov-
ingly, to combat all that.

It was, therefore, with warm satisfaction that, as Honoria
was about to rise from the table, she observed Richard emerge,
in a degree, from his abstraction, and heard him say : —

"You told me youM like to ride over to Farley this after-
noon and see the home for my crippled people. Are you too
tired after your headache, or do you still care to go ? "

" Oh ! I'm not tired, thanks," Honoria answered. Then
she hesitated, and Richard, looking at her, was aware, as on
the bridge yesterday, of a sudden and singular thickening of
her features, which, while marring her beauty, rendered her
aspect strangely pathetic, as of one who sustains some mys-
terious hurt. And to him it seemed, for the moment, as
though both that hurt and the infliction of it bore subtle rela-
tion to himself. Common sense discredited the notion as
unpermissibly fantastic, still it influenced and softened his
manner.

" But you know you are looking frightfully done up your-
self, Richard," she went on, with a charming air of half-reluc-
tant protest. " Isn't he. Cousin Katherine ? Are you sure
you want to ride this afternoon ? Please don't go out just on
my account."

" Oh ! I'm right enough," he answered. " I'd infinitely
rather go out."

He pushed back his chair and reached down for his
crutches. Still the fantastic notion that, all unwittingly, he
had been guilty of doing Honoria some strange injury, clung
to him. He was sensible of the desire to offer reparatign.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 661

This made him more communicative than he would otherwise
have been.

" I saw a man die this morning — that's all," he said. "I
know it's stupid, but one can't help it — it knocks one about
a bit. You see he didn't want to die, poor fellow, though,
God knows, he'd little enough to live for — or to live with, for
that matter."

"Your factory hand ? " Honoria asked.

Richard slipped out of his chair, and stood upright.

*^Yes, my factory hand," he answered. " Dear, old Knott
was fearfully savage about it. He was so tremendously keen
on the case, and made sure of pulling him through. But the
poor boy had been sliced up a little too thoroughly." — Richard
paused, smiling at Honoria. " So all one could do was to go
with him just as far as is permitted out into the great silence, ^
and then — then come home to luncheon. The home at Far-
ley loses its point, rather, now he is dead. Still there are
others, plenty of others, enough to satisfy even Knott's greed
of riveting broken human crockery. — Oh yes ! I shall enjoy
riding over, if you are still good to come. Four o'clock —
that'll suit you ? I'll order the horses."

And so, in due time, the two rode forth together into the
brightness of the September afternoon. The sea still called,
but Dickie's ears were deaf to all dangerous allurements and
excitations resident in that calling. It had to him, just now,
only the pensive charm of a far-away melody, which, though
no doubt of great and immediate import to others, had ceased
to be any concern of his. Beside the death-bed in the hospital-
ward he had renewed his vows, and the efficacy of that re-
newal was very present with him. It made for repose. It
laid the evil spirit of defiance, of self-consciousness, of hu-
miliation, so often obtaining in his intercourse with women —
a spirit begotten by the perpetual prick of his deformity, and
in part, too, by his determined adoption of the ascetic attitude
in regard to the affections. He was spent by the emotions of
the morning, but that also made for repose. For the time be-
ing devils were cast out. He was tranquil, yet exalted. His
eyes had a smile in them, as though they looked beyond the
limit of things transitory and material into the regions of the
Pure Idea, where the eternal values are disclosed and Peace
has her dwelling. And, precisely because of all this, he could

662 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

take Honoria's presence lightly, be chivalrously solicitous of
her entertainment and well-being, and talk to her with greater
freedom than ever heretofore. He ceased to be on his guard
with her because, in good truth, it seemed to him there ceased
to be anything to guard against. For the time being, at all
events, he had got to the other side of all that, and so she and
his relation to her, had become part of that charming but far-
away melody which was no concern of his — though mighty
great and altogether worthy concern of others, of Ludovic
Quayle, for example. — And in his present tranquil humour he
could listen to the sweetness of that melody ungrudgingly. It
was pleasant. He could enjoy it without envy — though it
was none of his.

But to Honoria's seeing, it must be owned, matters shaped
themselves very differently. For the usually unperturbed, the
chaste and gallant soul of her endured violent assaults, violent
commotions, the origin of which she but partially under-
stood. And these Richard's frankness, his courteous, in some
sort brotherly, good-fellowship, served to intensify rather than
allay. The feeling of the noble horse under her, the cool,,
westerly wind in her face, went to steady her nerves, and
restore the self-possession, courage of judgment, and clearness
of thought, which had been lacking to her during the past
twenty-four hours. Nevertheless she rode as through a but-
newly-discovered country, familiar objects displaying alien
aspects, familiar phrases assuming unlooked-for significance, a
something challenging and fateful meeting her everywhere.
The whole future seemed to hang in the balance, and she
waited, dreading yet longing, to see the scale turn.

This afternoon the harvesters were carrying the corn. Red-
painted waggons, drawn by sleek, heavy-made cart-horses,
crawled slowly across the blond stubble. It was pretty to see
the rusty-gold sheaves tossed up from the shining prongs of
the pitchforks on to the mountainous load. Honoria and Rich-
ard watched this, a little minute, from the grass-ride bordering
the roadway beneath the elms. Next came the high-lying
moorland, beyond the lodges. The fine-leaved heath was
thick with red-purple blossom. Patches of dusky heather
were frosted with dainty pink. Spikes of genista and beds of
needle-furze showed sharply yellow, vividly green, and a
fringe of blue campanula, with frail, quivering bells, outlined

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 663

all open spaces. The face of the land had been washed by
the rain. It shone with an inimitable cleanliness, as though
consciously happy in relief from all soil of dust. And it was
here, the open country stretching afar on all sides, that Dickie
began talking, not, as at first, in desultory fashion, but of mat-
ters nearly pertaining and closely interesting to himself.

" You know," he said, as they walked the horses quietly,
neck to neck, along the moorland road, " I don't go in for
system-making or for reforms on any big scale. That doesn't
come within my province. I must leave that to politicians
and to men who are in the push of the world. I admire it.
I rejoice in the hot-headed, narrow-brained, whole-hearted ag-
itator, who believes that his system adopted, his reform carried
through, the whole show will instantly be put straight. Such
faith is very touching."

" And the reformer has sometimes done some little good
after all," Honoria commented.

" Of course he has ! " Dickie agreed. " Only, as a rule,
poor dear, he can't be contented but that his special reform
should be the final one, that his system should be the universal
panacea. And in point of fact no reform is final this side of
death, and no panacea is universal, save that which the Maker
of the Universe chooses to work out — is working out now,
if we could any way grasp it — through the slow course of un-
numbered ages. Let the reformer do all he can, but don't let
him turn sour because his pet reform, his pet system, sinks
away and is swallowed up in the great sea of things — sea of
human progress, if you like. Every system is bound to prove
too small, every reform ludicrously inadequate- -be it never so
radical — because material conditions are perpetually changing,
while man in his mental, emotional and physical aspects re-
mains always precisely the same."

They passed from the breezy upland into the high-banked
lane which, leading downwards, joins the great London and
Portsmouth Road just beyond Farley Row.

*' And — and that is where I come in ! " Richard said, turn-
ing a little in the saddle and smiling sweet-temperedly, yet
with a suggestion of self-mockery, upon his companion.
"Just because, in essential respects, mankind remains — not-
withstanding modifications of his environment — substantially
the same, from the era of the Pentateuch to the era of the

664 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

Rougon-Macquarts, there must always be a lot of wreckage^
of waste, and refuse humanity. The inauguration of each
new system, each new reform — religious, political, educational^
economic — practically they're all in the same boat — let alone
the inevitable breakdown or petering out of each, necessarily
produces a fresh crop of such waste and refuse material. And
in that a man like myself, who does not aspire to cure or to
construct, but merely to alleviate and to pick up the pieces,
finds his chance."

And Honoria listened musing — approved, enthusiasm gain-
ing her ; yet protested — since, even while she admired, she re-
belled a little on his account, and for his sake.

" But it is rather a hard life, surely Richard," she said,
" which you propose to yourself ? Always the pieces, the
thing broken and spoiled, never the thing in its beauty, full of
promise, and whole ! "

" It is less hard for me than for most," he answered, " or
should be so. After all, I am to the manner born — a bit oi
human wreckage myself, with which, but for the accident of
wealth, things would have gone pretty badly. I used to be
horribly scared sometimes, as a small boy, thinking to what
uses I might be put if the kindly, golden rampart ever gave."

He became silent. As for Honoria, she had neither courage
to look at, nor answer, him just then.

" And you see, I'm absolutely free," he added presently. —
" I am alone, always shall be so. If the life is hard, I ask no
one to share it, so I may make it what I like."

" Oh ! no, no — you misunderstand, Richard ! I didn't mean
that," Honoria cried quickly, half under her breath.

Again he looked at her, smiling.

" Didn't you ? All the kinder of you," he said.

Thereupon regret, almost intolerable in its poignancy, in-
vaded Miss St. Quentin that she would have to go away, to go
back to the world and all the foolish obtaining fashions of it ;
that she would have to take that preeminently well-cushioned
and luxurious winter's journey to Cairo. She longed inex-
pressibly to remain here, to assist in these experiments made

in the name of Holy Charity. She longed inexpressibly to

And there Honoria paused, even in thought. Yet she glanced
at the young man riding beside her — at the handsome profile,
still and set in outline, the suggestion — it was no more — of a

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 665

scar running downward across the left cheek, at the well-made,
upright, broad-shouldered figure, and then at the saddle,
peaked, back and front, with oddly-shaped appendages to it
resembling old-fashioned holsters. — And, as yesterday upon
the bridge, the ache of a pain at once sweet and terrible laid
hold of her, making her queerly faint. The single street,
sun-covered, sleepy, empty save for a brewer's dray and tax-
cart or two standing before the solid Georgian portals of the
White Lion Inn, for a straggling tail of children bearing home
small shoppings and jugs of supper beer, for a flock of gray
geese proceeding with suggestively self-righteous demeanour
along the very middle of the roadway and lowering long necks
to hiss defiance at the passer-by, and for an old black retriever
dozing peacefully beneath one of the rustling sycamores in
front of Josiah Appleyard, the saddler's shop — all these, as she
looked at them, became uncertain in outline, reeled before
Honoria's eyes. For the moment she experienced a difficulty
in keeping steady in the saddle. But the horses still walked
quietly, neck to neck, their shadows, and those of their riders
growing longer, narrower, outstretched before them as the sun
declined in the west. All the future hung in the balance, but
the scale had not turned as yet.

Then Richard's voice took up its parable again,

" Perhaps it's a rather fraudulently comfortable doctrine, yet
it does strike one that the justification of disaster, in all its
many forms, is the opportunity it affords the individualist. He
may use it for self-aggrandisement, or for self-devotion —
though I rather shy at so showy a word as that last. How-
ever, the use he makes of it isn't the point. What is the
point, to my mind at least, is this — though it doesn't sound
magnificent, it hardly indeed sounds cleanly — that whatever
trade fails, whatever profession, thanks to the advance of civ-
ilisation, becomes obsolete, that of the man with the dust-cart,
of the scavenger, of the sweeper, won't."

Once more Richard smiled upon his companion charmingly,
yet with something of self-mockery.

" And so, you see, having knocked about enough to grow
careless of niceties of prejudice, and to acquire immense
admiration for any vocation which promises permanence, I
join hands with the dustman. In the light of science, and in
that of religion alike, nothing really is common or unclean.

666 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

And then — then, if you are outcasted In any case as some of
us are, it's a little too transparently cheap to be afraid of soil-
ing '* He broke off. — " Away there to the left, Honoria,"

he said. " You see the house ? The yellow-washed one, with
the gables and tiled roofs — there, back on the slope. — Bagshaw,
the Bond Street poulterer, had it for years. His lease ran out
in the spring, and happily he didn't care to renew. Had
bought himself an up-to-date, villa residence somewhere in the
suburbs— Chistlehurst, I believe. So I took the place over.
It will do for a beginning — the small end of the wedge of my
scavenger's business. There are over five acres of garden and
orchard, and plenty of rooms on each floor, which gives good
range for the disabled to move about in — and the stairs, only
one flight, are easy. One has to think of these details. And
— well, the house commands a magnificent view of Gierke's
Green, and the geese on it, than which nothing clearly can be
more exciting ! "

The groom rode forward and opened the gate. Before the
square, outstanding porch Richard drew up.

" I should like to come in with you," he said. ^' But you
see it's rather a business getting ofF one's horse, and I can't
very well manage the stairs. So I'll wait about till you are
ready. Don't hurry. I want you to see all the arrangements,
if it doesn't bore you, and make suggestions. The carpenters
are there, doing overtime. They'll let you through if the
caretaker's out."

Thus admonished, Miss St. Quentin dismounted and made
her way into the house. A broad passage led straight through
it. The open door at the farther end disclosed a vista of box-
edged path- and flower-borders where, in gay ranks, stood tall
sunflowers, hollyhocks, Michaelmas-daisies, and such like.
Beyond was orchard, the round-headed apple-trees, bright with
polished fruit, rising from a carpet of grass. The rooms, to
left and right of the passage, were pleasantly sun-warmed and
mellow of aspect, the ceilings of them crossed by massive
beams. Honoria visited them, dutifully observant. She en-
countered the head carpenter, an acquaintance and ally during
those four years so great part of which she had spent at Brock-
hurst. She talked with him, making inquiries concerning
wife, children and trade, incident to such a meeting, her face
very serious all the while, the skirt of her habit gathered up in

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 667

one hand, her gait a trifle stiff and measured owing to her
high riding-boots. But, though she acquitted herself in all
kindliness of conversation, though she conscientiously in-
spected each separate apartment, and noted the cheerful comeli-
ness of orchard and garden, it must be owned all these re-
mained singularly distant from her actual emotion and thought.
She was glad to be alone. She was glad to be away from
Richard Calmady, though zealously obedient to his wishes in
respect of this inspection. For his presence became increas-
ingly oppressive from the intensity of feeling it produced in her,
and which she was, at present, powerless to direct towards any
reasonable and definite end. This rendered her tonp;ue-tied-
and, as she fancied, stupid. Her unreadiness mortified her.
She, usually indifferent enough to the impression she produced
on others, was sensible of a keen desire to appear at her best.
She did in fact, so she believed, appear at her worst, slow of
understanding and of sympathy. — But then all the future hung
in the balance. The scale delayed to turn. And the strain
of waiting became agitating to the point of distress.

At last the course of her so-dutiful survey brought her to a
quaint, little chamber, situated immediately over the square^
outstanding porch. It was lighted by a single, hooded window
placed in the centre of the front wall. It was evidently de-
signed for a linen room, and was in process of being fitted
with shelves and cupboards of white pine. The floor was deep-
in shavings, long, curly, wafer-coloured, semi-transparent.
They rustled like fallen leaves when Honoria stepped among
them. The air was filled with the odour of them, dry and
resinous as that of the fir forest. Ever after that odour affected
Honoria with a sense of half-fearful joy and of impending fate.
She stood in the middle of the quaint, little chamber. The
ceiling was low. She had to bend her head to avoid violent
contact between the central beam of it and the crown of her
felt hat. But circumscribed though the space, and uncomfort-
able though her posture, she had an absurd longing to lock
the door of the little room, never to come out, to stay here for-
ever ! Here she was safe. But outside, on the threshold^
stood something she dared not name. It drew her with a pain
at once terrible and lovely. She dreaded it. Yet once close
to it, once face to face with it, she knew it would have her —
that it would not take no for an answer. Her pride, her

668 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

chastity, were in arms. Was this, she wondered, what men
and women speak of so lightly, laugh and joke about ? Was
this love ? — To her it seemed wholly awe-inspiring. And sc
she clung strangely to the shelter of the quaint, little room
with its sea of rustling, resinous shavings. On the other side
the door of it waited that momentous decision which would
cause the scale to turn. Yet the minutes passed. To pro-
long her absence became impossible.

Just then there was a movement below, a crunching of the
gravel, as though of a horse growing restless, impatient of
standing. Honoria moved forward, opened the window,
pushing back the casement against a cluster of late-blossom-
ing, red roses, the petals of which floated slowly downward
describing fluttering circles. Richard Calmady was just below.
Honoria called to him.

" I am coming, Richard, I am coming ! " she said.

He turned in the saddle and looked up at her smiling — a
smile at once courageous and resigned. Yet, notwithstanding
that smile, Honoria once again discovered in his eyes the chill
desolation and homelessness of the sky of the winter night.
Then the scale turned, turned at last— for that same lovely pain
grew lovelier, more desirable than any possibility of ease,
until such time as that desolation should pass, that homeless-
riess be cradled to content in some sure harbourage. — Here
was the thing given her to do, and she must do it ! She would
risk all to win all. And, with that decision, all her serenity
and freedom of soul returned^ The white light of a noble
self-devotion, reckless of self-spending, reckless of conse-
quence, the joy of a great giving, illuminated her face.

As to Richard, he, looking up at her, though ignorant of
her purpose, misreading the cause of that inspired aspect, still
thought he had never witnessed so graciously gallant a sight.
The nymph whom he had first known, who had baffled and
crossed him, was here still, strong, untamed, elusive, remote.
But a woman was here too, of finest fibre, faithful and loyal,
capable of undying tenderness, of an all-encircling and heroic
love. Then the desires of the natural man stirred somewhat
in Richard, just because — paradox though it undoubtedly was
— she provoked less the carnal, perishing passion of the flesh,
than the pure and imperishable passion of the spirit. Irre-
jiressible envy of Ludovic Quayle, her lover, seized him, irrc-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 669

pressible demand for just all those things which that other
Richard, the would-be saint, had so sternly condemned him-
self to repudiate, to cast aside and forget. And the would-be
saint triumphed — beating down thought of all that, trampling
it under foot — so that after briefest interval he called up to her
cheerily enough.

" Well, what do you make of the dust-cart ? Rather fas-
cinating, isn't it ? Notwithstanding its uncleanly name, it's
really rather sweet."

To which she answered, speaking from out the wide back-
ground of her own emotion and purpose : —

" Yes, yes — it's sad in a way, Richard, penetratingly, splen-
didly sad. But one wouldn't h?ve it otherwise ; for it is
splendid, and it is sweet, abundantly sweet."-— Then her tone
changed. — "I won't keep you waiting any longer, I'm com-
ing," she said.

Honoria looked round the quaint, little room, with its half-
adjusted shelves and cupboards, the floor of it deep in resinous,
semi-transparent, wafer-coloured shavings, bidding it adieu.
For good or evil, happiness or sorrow, she was sensible it told
for much in her life's history. Then, something delicately^
militant in her carriage, she swung away down-stairs and out
of the house. She was going forth to war indeed, to a war
which in no shape or form had she ever waged as yet. Many
men had wooed her, and their wooing had left her cold. She
had never wooed any man. Why should she ? To her na
man had ever mattered one little bit.

So she mounted, and they rode away. — A spin across the
level turf to hearten her up, satisfy the fulness of sensation
which held her, and shake her nerves into place. It was ex-
hilarating. She grew keen and tense, her whole economy be-
coming reliable and well-knit by the strong exercise and sense
of the superbly healthy and unperplexed vitality of the horse
under her. Honoria could have fought with dragons just then,
had such been there to fight with ! But, in point of fact,
nothing more agressively dangerous presented itself for en-
counter than the shallow ford which divides the parish of
Farley from that of Sandyfield and the tithing of Brockhurst.
Snorting a little, the horses splashed through the clear, brown
water and entered upon the rough, rutted road, grass grown
in places, which, ending beneath a broken avenue of ancient,.

670 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

stag-headed oaks, leads to the entrance of the Brockhurst
woods. These, crowned by the dark, ragged line of the fir
forest, rose in a soft, dense mass against the western sky, in
which showed promise of a fair pageant of sunset. A covey
of partridges ran up the sandy ruts before the horses, and,
rising at last with a long-drawn whir of wings, skimmed the
top of the crumbling bank and dropped in the stubble-field on
che right. A pause, while the keeper's wife ran out to open
the white gate, — the dogs meanwhile, from their wooden
kennels under the Spanish chestnuts upon the hillock behind
the lodge, pulling at their chains and keeping up a vociferous
chorus. Thus heralded, the riders passed into the mysteri-
ously whispering quiet of the great woods.

The heavy, summer foliage remained as yet untouched by
the hectic of autumn. Diversity was observable in form
rather than in tint, and from this resulted a remarkable effect
of unity, a singleness of intention, and of far-reaching se-
crecy. The multitudinous leaves and the all-pervading green
gloom of them around, above, seemed to engulf horses and
riders. It was as though they rode across the floor of ocean,
the green tides sweeping overhead. Yet the trees of the
wood asserted their intelligent presence now and again. Au-
dibly they talked together, bent themselves a little to listen
and to look, as though curious of the aspect and purposes of
these wandering mortals. And all this, the unity and secrecy
of the place, affected both Richard and Honoria strangely,
circling them about with something of earth-magic, removing
them far from ordinary conditions of social intercourse, and
thus rendering it possible, inevitable even, that they should
think such thoughts and say such words as part company with
subterfuge and concealment, go naked, and speak uttermost
truth. For, with only the trees of the wood to listen, with
that sibilant whisper of the green tide overhead, with strong
emotion compelling them — in the one case towards death of
self, in the other towards giving of self — in the one towards
austere passivity, in the other towards activity taxing all capi-
tal of pride, of delicacy, and of tact — developments became
imminent, and those of the most vital sort.

The conversation had been broken, desultory ; but now, by
tacit consent, the pace became quiet again, the horses were
permitted to walk. To have gone other than softly through

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 671

the living heart of the greenwood must have savoured of des-
ecration. Yet Richard was not insensible to a certain danger.
He tried, rousing himself to conversation, to rouse himself also-
to the practical and commonplace.

" I am glad you liked my house," he said. " But I hear
the aristocracy of the Row laments. It shies at the idea of
being invaded by more or less frightful creatures. But I re-
main deaf. I really can't bother about that. It is so im-
measurably more unpleasant to be frightful than to see that
which is so, that I'm afraid my sympathies remain rather pig-
headedly one-sided. I propose to educate the Row in the
grace of pity. It may lay up merit by due exercise of that."

Richard took off his hat and rode bareheaded, looking
away into the delicious, green gloom. Here, where the wood
was thickest, oak and beech shutting out the sky, clasping
hands overhead, the ground beneath them deep in moss and
fern, that gloom was precisely like the colour of Honoria's>
eyes. He wished it wasn't so. He tried to forget it. But
the resemblance haunted him. Look where he might, still he
seemed to look into those singular and charming eyes. He
talked on determinedly, putting a force upon himself — too
often saying that which, no sooner was it out of his mouth,
than, he wished unsaid.

" I don't want to be too hard on the Row, though. It has
a right, after all, to its little prejudices. Only you see for
those who, poor souls, are different to other people it becomes
of such supreme importance to keep in touch with the average.
I have found that out in practice. And so I refuse to shut my
waste humanity away. They must neither hide themselves
nor be hidden, be spared seeing how much other people enjoy
from which they are debarred, or grow over-conscious of their
own ungainliness. That is why I've planted them and their
gardens, and their pigs and their poultry — we'll have a lot of
live stock, a second generation, even of chickens, offers re-
markable consolations !— on the highroad, at the entrance of
the little town, where, on a small scale at all events, they'll
see the world that's straight-backed and has its proper comple-
ment of limbs and senses, go by. Envy, hatred, and malice,
and the seven devils of morbidity are forever lying in wait for
them — well — for us — for me and chose like me, I mean. In
proportion as one's brought up tenderly — as I was — one

672 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

doesn't realise the deprivation and disgust of one's condition
at the start. But once realised, one's inclination is to kill.
At least a man's is. A woman may accept it more quietly, I
suppose."

" Richard," Honoria said slowly, "are you sure you don't
greatly exaggerate all — all that ? "

He shook his head.

" Thirty years' experience — no, I don't exaggerate ! Each
time one makes a fresh acquaintance, each time a pretty
woman is just that bit kinder to one than she would dare be to
any man who was not out of it, each time people are mani-
festly interested — politely, of course — and form a circle, make
room for one as they did at that particularly disagreeable
Grimshott garden party yesterday, each time — I don't want to
drivel, but so it is — one sees a pair of lovers — oh ! well, it's
not easy to retain one's philosophy, not to obey the primitive
instincts of any animal when it's ill-used and hurt, and to re-
venge oneself — to want to kill^ in short."

" You — you don't hate women, then ? " Honoria said, still
slowly.

Richard stared at her for a moment.

" Hate them ? " he said, "I only wish to goodness I did."

" But in that case," she began bravely, " why "

" This is why," he broke in. — " You may remember my
engagement to Lady Constance Quayle, and the part you,
very properly, took in the canceling of it ? You know better
than I do — though my imagination is pretty fertile in dealing
with the situation — what instincts and feelings prompted you
to take that part."

The young lady turned to him, her arms outstretched, not-
withstanding bridle-reins and whip, her face, and those strange
eyes which seemed so integral a part of the fair green-wood,
full of sorrowful entreaty and distress.

" Richard, Richard," she cried, " will you never forgive me
that ? She didn't love you. It was horrible, yet in doing that
which I did, I believed— I believe so still — I did what was
right by you both."

" Undoubtedly you did right — and that justifies my conten-
tion. In doing that which you did you gave voice to the
opinion of all wholesome-minded people. That's exactly
where it is. You felt the whole business to be outrageous.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 675

So it was. I heartily agree.'* — He paused, and the trees
talked softly together, bending down a little to listen and to
look. — "As you say, she wasn't in love. Poor child, how
could she be ? No woman ever will be — at least not in love
of the nobler sort — of the sort which, if one cannot have it,
one had a vast deal better have no love at all."

'' But I am not so sure of that," Honoria said stoutly.
" You rush to conclusions. Isn't it rather a reflection on all
the rest of us to take little Lady Constance as the measure of
the insight and sensibility of the whole sex ? And then she
had already lost all her innocent, little heart to Captain
Decies. Indeed you're not fair to us. — Wait "

" Like Ludovic Quayle ? "

Miss St. Quentin straightened herself in the saddle.

" Oh ! dear no, not the least like Ludovic Quayle ! " she
said.

Which enigmatic reply produced silence for a while on
Dickie's part. For there were various ways in which it might
be interpreted, some flattering, some eminently unflattering, to
himself. And from every point of view it was wisest to ac-
cept that last form of interpretation. The whole conversa-
tion had been perilous in character. It had been too intimate,,
had touched him too nearly, taking place here in the clear
glooms of the green-wood moreover which bore such haunt-
ing kinship to those singularly sincere, and yet mysterious,,
eyes. It is dangerous to ride across the floor of ocean with
the whispering tide sweeping overhead, and in such gallant
company, besides, that to ride thus forever could hardly come
amiss ! — Richard, in his turn, straightened himself up in the
saddle, opened his chest, taking a long breath, carried his head
high, said a stern "get thee behind me, Satan," to encroach-
ing sentiment and emotion, and to those fair visions which his
companion's presence and her somewhat daring talk had con-
jured up. He defied the earth-magic, defied those sylvan deities
who as he divined, sought to enthral him. For the moment
he confounded Honoria's influence with theirs. It was some-
thing of a battle, and not the first one he had fought to-day»
For the great, white road which leads onward to Perfection
looked dusty and arid enough — no reposeful shadow, no mys-
tery, no beguiling green glooms over it ! Stark, straight,
hard, it stretched on endlessly, as it seemed, ahead. To

674 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

travel it was slow and tedious work, in any case ; and to travel
it on crutches ! — But it was worse than useless to play with
such thoughts as these. He would put a stop to this disin-
tegrating talic. He turned to Honoria and spoke lightly, with
a return of self-mockery.

" Oh ! your first instinct was the true one, depend upon
it," he said. "Though I don't deny it contributed, indirectly,
to giving me a pretty rough time."

" Oh ! dear me ! " Honoria cried, almost piteously. Then
she added : — " But I don't see, why was that? "

" Because, I suppose, I had a sort of unwilling belief in
you," he said, smiling. — Oh ! this accursed conversation,
why would it insistently drift back into intimacy thus !

"Have I justified that belief?" she asked, with a certain
pride yet a certain eagerness.

" More than justified it," Dickie answered. " My mother,
who has a touchstone for all that is of high worth, knew you
from the first. Like the devils, I — I believed and trembled —
at least that is how I see it all now. So your action came as
a rather searching revelation and condemnation. When I
perceived all that it involved — oh, well ! first I went to the
dogs, and then "

The horses walked side by side. Honoria stretched out her
hand impulsively, laid it on his arm.

" Richard, Richard, for pity's sake don't ! You hurt me
too much. It's terrible to have been the cause of such suf-
fering."

" You weren't the cause," he said. " Lies were the cause,
behind which, like a fool, I'd tried to shelter myself. You've
been right, Honoria, from first to last. What does it matter
after all ? — Don't take it to heart. For it's over now — all
over, thank God, and I have got back into normal relations
with things and with people." — He looked at her very charm-
ingly, and spoke with a fine courtesy of tone. — " One way
and another you have taught me a lot, and I am grateful.
And, in the future, though the conditions will be altered, I
hope you'll come back here often, Honoria, and just see for
yourself that my mother is content ; and give my schemes and
fads a kindly look in at the same time. And perhaps give me
a trifle of sound advice. I shall need it safe enough. You
sec what I want to get at is temperance — temperance all

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 675

round, towards everything and everybody — not fanaticism^
which, in some respects, is a much easier attitute of mind."

Richard looked up into the whispering, green tide over-
head.

"Yes, one must deny oneself the luxury of fanaticism, if
possible," he said, " deny oneself the vanity of eccentricity..
One must take everything simply, just in the day's work.
One must keep in touch. Keep in touch with your world,,
the great world, the world which cultivates pleasure and inci-
dentally makes history, as well as with the world of the dust-^
cart — I know that well enough — if one's to be quite sane.
You see loneliness, a loneliness of which I am thankful to*
think you can form no conception, is the curse of persons like
myself. It inclines one to hide, to sulk, to shut oneself away
and become misanthropic. To hug one's misery becomes
one's chiefest pleasure — to nurse one's grief, one's sense of
injury. Oh ! I'm wary, very wary now, I tell you," he
added, half laughing. " I know all the insidious temptations^
the tricks and frauds, and pitfalls of this affair. And so I'll
continue to go to Grimshott garden parties as discipline now
and then, while I gather my disabled and decrepit family very
closely about me and say words of wisdom to it — wisdom de-
rived from a mature and extensive personal experience."

There was a pause before Miss St. Quentin spoke. Then?-
she said slowly.

" And you refuse to let any one help ? You, you refuse ta
let any one share the cares of that disabled family ? "

Again Dickie stared at her, arrested by her speech and
doubtful of the intention of it. He could have sworn there
were tears in her voice, that it trembled. But her face was
averted, and he could see no more than the slightly angular
outline of her cheek and chin.

" Isn't that a rather superfluous question ? " he remarked.
" As you pointed out a little while ago, mine is not a super-
abundantly cheerful programme. No one would volunteer
for such service — at least no one likely to be acceptable to my
mother, or indeed likely to satisfy my own requirements. I
admit, I'm a little fastidious, a little critical and exacting, wheiir
it comes to close quarters and — well — permaneat association^
even yet."

* I am very glad to hear that," Honoria said Her face ro-

676 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

mained averted, but there was a change in her attitude, a
decision in the pose of her figure, suggestive both of challenge
and of triumph.

Richard was nonplussed, but his blood was up. This con-
versation had gone far enough — indeed too far. Very certainly
he would make an end of it.

"But God forbid," he exclaimed, "that I should ever fall
to such a depth of selfishness as to invite any person who
would satisfy my taste, my demands, to share my life ! I
' mayn't amount to very much, but at least I have never used
I my personal ill luck to trade on a woman's generosity and
pity. What I have had from women, Pve paid for, in hard
cash. In that respect my conscience is clear. It has been a
bargain, fair and square and above board, and all my debts are
•settled in full. You hardly think at this time of day I should
use my proposed schemes of philanthropy as a bait ? "

Richard sent his horse forward at a sharp trot.

" No, no, Honoria," he said, " let it be understood that
side of things is over forever."

But here came relief from the green glooms of the green-
wood and the dangerous magic of them. For the riders had
reached the summit of the hill, and entered upon the levels of
the great table-land at the head of which Brockhurst House
stands. Here was the open, the fresh breeze, the long-drawn,
sighing song of the fir forest — a song more austere, more
courageous, more virile, than ever sung by the trees of the wood
which drop their leaves for fear of the sharp-toothed winter,
and only put them forth again beneath the kisses of soft-lipped
spring. Covering all the western sky were lines of softly-
founded, broken cloud, rank behind rank, in endless per-
spective, the whole shaped like a mighty fan. The under
side of them was flushed with living rose. The clear spaces
behind them paved with sapphire at the zenith, and palest
topaz where they skirted the far horizon.
'->'How very beautiful it is!" Honoria cried, joyously.
"•* Richard let us see this."

She turned her horse at the green ride which leads to the
•white Temple situate on that outstanding spur of hill. She
Tode on quickly till she reached the platform of turf before the
Temple. Richard followed her with deliberation. He was
shaken. His calm was broken up, his whole being in tumult.

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 677

Why had she pressed just all those matters home on hinr
which he had agreed with himself to cast aside and forget ?
It was a little cruel, surely, that temptation should assail him
thus, and the white road towards Perfection be made so difficult
to tread, just when he had re-dedicated himself and renewed his
vows ? He looked after her. It was here he had met her
first, after the time when, as a little maid, she had proved too
swift of foot, leaving him so far behind that it sorely hurt his
baby dignity and caused him to see her depart without regret.
She was still swift of foot. She left him behind now. For
the moment he was ready to swear that, not only without re-
gret, but with actual thankfulness he could again witness her de-
parture.— Yes, he wanted her to go, because he so desperately
wanted her to stay — that was the truth. For not only Dickie
the natural man, but Dickie " the wild bull in a net," had a
word to say just then. — God in heaven, what hard work it is
to be good !

Miss St. Quentin kicked her left foot out of the stirrup^
threw her right leg over the pommel, turned, and slipped
straight out of the saddle. She stood there a somewhat se-
verely tall, dark figure, strong and positive in efi'ect, against
the immense and reposeful landscape — far-ranging, purple
distance, golden harvest-fields, silver glint of water in the hol-
lows, all the massive grandeur of the woods, and that superb
pageant of sunset sky.

The groom rode forward, took her horse, led it away to the
far side of the grass platform behind the Temple. Those
ranks of rosy cloud in infinite perspective, with spaces of
clearest topaz and sapphire light between, converged to the
glowing glory of the sun, the rim of which now touched the
margin of the world. They were as ranks of worshippers, of
blessed souls redeemed and sainted, united by a common act
of adoration, every form clothed by reflection of His glory,
every heart, every thought centred upon God. — Richard
looked at all that, but it failed to speak to him. Then he saw
Honoria resolutely turn her back upon the glory. She came
directly towards him. Her face was very thin, her manner
very calm. She laid her left hand on the peak of his saddle.
She looked him full in the eyes.

" Richard," she said, " be patient a minute and listen. — It
comes to this, that a woman — your equal in position, of your

678 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

own age, and not without money — does volunteer to share
your work. It's no forlorn hope. She is not disappointed.
On the contrary she has, and can have, pretty well all the
world's got to give. Only — perhaps very foolishly, for she
doesn't know much about the matter, having been rather cold-
blooded as yet — she has fallen in love."

There was a silence, save that the wind came out of the
west, out of the majesty of the sunset, and with it came the
calling of the sea — not only of the blue water, or of those
green tides that sweep above wandering mortals in the magic
green-wood ; but of the sea of faith, of the sea of love — love
human, love divine, love universal — which circles not only
this, but all possible states of being, all possible worlds.

Presently Richard spoke hoarsely, under his breath.

*' With whom ? " he said.

*^ With you "

Dickie went white to the lips. He sat absolutely still for a
little space, his hands resting on his thighs.

" Tell her to think," he said, at last. — " She proposes to do
that which the world will condemn, and rightly, from its point
of view. It will misread her motives. It won't spare disa-
greeable comment. Tell her to think. — Tell — tell her to
look. — Cripple, dwarf, the last, as he ought to be, of an un-
lucky race — a man who's carried up and down-stairs like an
infant, who's strapped to the saddle, strapped to the driving
seat — who is cut off from most forms of activity and of sport.
— A man who will never have any sort of career — who has
given himself, in expiation of past sins, to the service of
human beings a degree more unfortunate than himself. — No,
no, stop — hear me out. — She must know it all ! — A man who
has lived far from cleanly, who has evil memories and evil
knowledge of life — no — listen ! — A man whom you, — yes,
you yourself, Honoria, — have condemned bitterly, from whom,
notwithstanding your splendid nerve and pluck, so repulsive is
his deformity, you have shrunk a hundred times."

" She has thought of all that," Honoria answered calmly.
*' But she has thought of this too, — that, going up and down
the world to find the most excellent thing in it, she has found
this thing, love. And so to her, Richard, your crippling has
come to be dearer than any other man's wholeness. Your
wrong-doings — may God forgive her — dearer than any other

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 679

man's virtue. Your virtues so wholly beautiful that —
that "

The tears came into her eyes, her lips quivered, she backed
away a little from rider and horse.

'^ Richard," she cried fiercely, " if you don't care for me^
if you don't want me, be honourable, tell me so straight out
and let us have done with it ! I am strong enough, I am
man enough, for that. For heaven's sake don't take me out
of pity. I would never forgive you. There's a good deal
of us both, one way and another, and we should give each
other a hell of a time if I was in love and you were not.
But " — she put her hand on the peak of that very ugly saddle
again — ^^ but, if you do care, here I am. I have never failed
any one yet. I will never fail you. I am yours body and
soul. Marry me," she said.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH RICHARD CALMADY BIDS THE LONG-SUFFERING

READER FAREWELL

npHE midsummer dusk had fallen, drawing its soft, dim
•*' mantle over the face of the land. The white light
walked the northern sky from west to east. A nightingale
sang in the big, Portugal laurel at the corner of the troco-
ground, and was answered by another singer from the coppice,
across the valley, bordering the trout stream that feeds the
Long Water. A fox barked sharply out in the Warren.
Beetles droned, flying conspicuously upright, straight on end,
through the warm air. The churring of the night-jars, as
they flitted hither and thither over the beds of bracken and
dog-roses, like gigantic moths, on quick, silent wings, formed
a continuous accompaniment, as of a spinning-wheel, to the
other sounds. And Dick Ormiston laughed consumedly,
doubling himself together now and again and holding his slim
sides in effort to moderate his explosive merriment. He was
in uproarious spirits. — Back from school to-day, and that nearly
a month earlier than could by the most favourable process of
calculation have been anticipated, thanks to development of

68o SIR RICHARD CALMADY

measles on the part of some much-to-be-commended school-
fellows. How he blessed those praiseworthy young sufferers !
And how he laughed, watching the two heavy-headed, lollop-
ing, half-grown, bull-dog puppies describe crazy circles upon
the smooth turf in the deepening dusk. Seen thus in the
half-light they appeared more than ever gnome-like, humor-
ously ugly and awkward. They trod on their own ears,
tumbled over one another, sprawled on the grass, panting and
grinning, until their ecstatic owner incited them to further
gyrations. To Dick this was a night of unbridled licence.
Had he not dined late ? Had he not leave to sit up till half-
past ten o'clock ? Was he not going out, bright and early, to-
morrow morning to see the horses galloped ? Could life hold
greater complement of good for a brave, little, ten-year-old
soul, and slender, serviceable, little, ten-year-old body emulous
of all manly virtues and manly pastimes ?

So the boy laughed ; and the sound of his laughter reached
the ears both of the elder and the younger Lady Calmady, as they
slowly paced the straight walk between the gray balustrade and
the edge of the turf. On their left the great outstretch of
valley and wood lay drowned in the suave uncertainties of the
summer night. Before them was the whole terrace-front of
the house, its stacks of twisted chimneys clear cut against the
sky. Bright light shone out from the windows of the red
drawing-room, and from those of the hall, bringing flowers,
sections of gray pavement, and like details into sharp relief.
There were passing lights in the range of windows above,
suggesting cheerful movement within the great house. At
the southern end of the terrace, just below the arcade of the
garden-hall — which showed pale against the shadow within
and brickwork above — two men were sitting. Their voices
reached the ladies now and then in quiet yet animated talk.
A spirit of peace, of security, of firmly-planted hope, seemed
to pervade all the scene, all the place. Waking or sleeping,
fear was banished. All was strong to work to-morrow, so to-
night all could calmly yield itself to rest.

And it was a sense of just this, and a tender anxiety lest
the fulness of the gracious content of it should be in any de-
gree marred to her dear companion, which made Honoria
Calmady say presently : —

"You don*t mind little Dick's racketting with those ridicu-

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 68r

lous puppies, do you, Cousin Katherine ? If it bothers you
ril stop him like a shot."

But Katherine shook her head.

"My dearest child, why stop him?" she said. "The
foolishnesses of young creatures at play are delicious, and laugh-
ter, so long as it is not cruel, I reckon among the good gifts of
God." — She paused a moment. " Dear Marie de Mirancourt
tried to teach me that long ago, but I was culpably dull of
hearing in those days where spiritual truth was concerned, and
I failed to grasp her meaning. I believe we never really love,
either man or Almighty God, until we can both laugh our-
selves and let others laugh. Of all false doctrines that of the
sour-faced, joyless puritan is the falsest. His mere outward
aspect is a sin against the Holy Ghost."

And Honoria smiled, patting the hand which lay on her arm
very tenderly.

" How I love your heavenly rage ! " she said. They moved
on a few steps in silence. Then, careless of all the rapture its
notification of the passing of time might cut short, the clock
at the house-stables chimed the half-hour. Honoria paused in
her gentle walk.

" Bedtime, Dick," she cried.

" All right," the boy returned. He pursued, and laid hold
of, the errant puppies, stowing them, not without kickings and
strugglings on their part, one under either arm. They were
large and heavy, just as much as he could carry, and he
staggered across the grass with them, presenting the effect of
a small, black donkey between a pair of very big, white pan-
niers.

"I say, they are awfully stunning though, you know,
Honoria," he said rather breathlessly as he came up to her.

"Very soul-satisfying, aren't they, Dick?" she replied.
" Richard foresaw as much. That is why he got them for
you."

" If I put them down do you suppose they'll follow ?
Carrying them does make my arms ache."

" Oh, they'll follow fast enough," Honoria said.

He lowered the puppies circumspectly on to the gravel.

*' They'll be whoppers when they're grown," he remarked.

"What shall you call them ? "
Adam and Eve I think, because they're the first of my

44

682 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

lot. They're pedigree dogs — and later I may want to show,
don't you see."

"Yes, I see," Honoria said.

He came close to her, putting his face up half shyly to be
kissed. Then as young Lady Calmady, somewhat ghostly in
her trailing, white evening dress, bent her charming head, the
boy, suddenly overcome with the manifold excitements of the
day, flung his arms round her.

" Oh ! oh ! " he gasped, " how awfully ripping it is to be
back here again with you and Cousin Richard and Aunt
Katherine ! I wish number-four dormitory would get measles
the middle of every term ! — Only I forgot — perhaps I ought
not to touch you, Honoria, after messing about with the dogs.
Do you mind ? "

" Not a bit," she said.

" But, Honoria," — he rubbed his cool cheek against her
bare neck — "I say, don't you think you might come and see
me, just for a little weeny while, after I'm in bed to-night ? '*

And young Lady Calmady, thus coaxed, held the slight
figure close. She had a very special place in her heart for
this small Dick, who in face, and as she hoped in nature also,
bore such comfortable resemblance to that elder, and altogether
well-beloved, Dick who was the delight of her life.

" Yes, dear, old chap, I'll come," she said. " Only it must
really be for a little, weeny while, because you must go to
sleep. By the way, who's going to valet you these holidays ?
Clara or Faulstich ? "

" Oh, neither," the boy answered. " I think I'm rather
old for women now, don't you know, Honoria." — At which
statement she laughed, his cheek being again tucked tight into
the turn of her neck. "I shall have Andrews in future. I
asked Cousin Richard about it. He's a very civil-mannered
fellow, and he knows about yachts and things, and he says he
likes being up before five o'clock."

" Does he ? Excellently veracious young man ! '^ Honoria
remarked.

But thereupon, exuberance of joy demanding active expres-
sion, the boy broke away with a whoop and set ofF running.
The puppies lolloped away at his heels. And young Lady
Calmady — whom such giddy fancies still took at times, not-
withstanding nearly three years of marriage — flew after the

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 683

trio, the train of her dress floating out behind her to most
admired extravagance of length as she skimmed along the path.
Fair lady, boy, and dogs disappeared, with sounds of merri-
ment, into the near garden-hall ; reappeared upon the terrace,
bearing down, but at sobering pace, upon the occupants of the
chairs set at the end of it. One man rose to his feet, a tall,
narrow, black figure. The other remained seated. The
light shining forth from the great bay-window of the hall
touched the little group, conferring a certain grandeur upon
the graceful, white-clad Honoria. Her satin dress shimmered
as she moved. There was, as of old, a triumph of high
purity, of freedom of soul, in her aspect. Her voice came,
with a fine gladness yet soft' richness of tone, across that
intervening triangular space of sloping turf upon which ter-
race and troco-ground alike looked down. The nightingale,
who had fallen silent during the skirmish, took up his passion-
ate singing again, and was answered delicately, a song not of
the flesh but of the spirit, by the bird from across the valley.

Katherine Calmady stood solitary, watching, listening, her
hands folded rather high on her bosom. The caressing suavity
of the summer night enfolded her. And remembrance came
to her of another night, nearly four-and-thirty years ago, when,
standing in this same spot, she, young, untried, ambitious of
unlimited delight, had felt the first mysterious pangs of
motherhood, and told her husband of that new, unseen life
which was at once his and her own. And of yet another
night, when, after long experience of sorrow, solitude, and
revolt, her husband had come to her once again — but come
€ven as the bird's song came from across the valley, ethereal-
ised, spiritualised, the same yet endowed with qualities of un-
earthly beauty — and how that strange and exquisite commun-
ion with the dead had fortified her to endure an anguish even
greater than any she had yet known. — She had prayed that
night that she might behold the face of her well-beloved, and
her prayer had been granted. She had prayed that, without
reservation, she might be absorbed by, and conformed to, the
Divine Will. And that prayer had, as she humbly trusted,
been in great measure granted also. But then the Divine
Will had proved so very merciful, the Divine Intention so
wholly beneficent, there was small credit in being conformed
to either ! — Katherine bowed her head in thanksgiving. The

684 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

goodness of the Almighty towards her had been abundant be-
yond asking or fondest hope.

She was aroused from her gracious meditation by the sound
of footsteps — measured, a little weary perhaps — approaching
her. She looked up to see Julius March. And a point of
gentle anxiety pricked Katherine. For it occurred to her that
Julius had failed somewhat in health and energy of late. She
reproached herself lest, in the interest of watching those
vigorous, young lives so dear to her, participating in their
schemes, basking in the sunshine of their love, she had
neglected Julius and failed to care for his comfort as she
might. To those that have shall be given even of sympathy,
even of strength. In that there is an ironical as well as an
equitable truth ; and she was to blame perhaps in the ironical
application of it. It followed therefore, that she greeted him
now with a quickening both of solicitude and of affection.

" Come and pace, dear Julius, come and pace," she said,
"as in times past. Yet not wholly as in the past, for then
often I must have distressed and troubled you, since my pa-
cings were too often the outcome of restlessness and of unruly
passion, while now "

Katherine broke off, gazing at the little company gathered
upon the terrace.

" Surely they are very happy ? " she said, almost involun-
tarily.

And he, smiling at his dear lady's incapacity of escape from
her fixed idea, replied : —

" Yes, very surely."

Katherine tied the white, lace coif she wore a little tighter
beneath her chin.

" In their happiness I renew that of my own youth," she
said gently, " as it is granted to few women, I imagine, to
renew it. But I renew it with a reverence for them ; since
my own happiness was plain sailing enough, obvious, incon-
testable, whilst theirs is nobler, and rises to a higher plane.
For its roots, after all, are planted in very mournful fact, to
which it has risen superior, and over which it has triumphed."

But he answered, jealous of his dear lady's self-deprecia-
tion : —

" I can hardly admit that. To begin in unclouded promise
of happiness, to decline to searchmg and unusual experience

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 685

of sorrow, and then, by self-discipline and obedience, to attain
your present altitude of tranquillity and assurance of faith, is
surely a greater trial, a greater triumph, than to begin with
difficulties, with much, I admit, to overcome and resist, but to
succeed as they are succeeding and be granted the high land
of happiness which they even now possess ? They are young,
fortune smiles on them. Above all, they have one an-
other "

" Ah, yes ! " she said, " they have one another. Long may
that last. It is a very perfect marriage of true minds, as well
as true hearts. I had, and they have, all that love can give,"
— Lady Calmady turned at the end of the walk. " But it
troubles me, as a sort of emptiness and waste, dear Julius,
that you have never had that. It pains me that you, who
possess so noble a power of disinterested and untiring friend-
ship, should never have enjoyed that other, and nearer rela-
tion, which transcends friendship even as to-morrow's dawn
will transcend in loveliness the chastened restfulness of this
evening's dusk."

Katherine moved onward with a certain sweet dignity of
manner.

" Tell me — is she still alive, Julius, this lady whom you so
loved ? "

" Yes, thank God," he said.

*' And you have never tried to elude that vow which — as
you once told me — you made long ago before you knew
her ? "

" Never," he replied. " Without it I could not have
served her as I have been able to serve her. I am wholly
thankful for it. It made much possible which must have
otherwise been impossible."

" And have you never told her that you loved her — even
yet?"

" No,** he replied, " because, had I told her, I must have
ceased to serve her, I must have left her, Katherine, and I did
not think God required that of me."

Lady Calmady walked on in silence, her head a little bent.
At the end of the path she stood a moment, listening to the
answering songs of the two nightingales.

" Ah ! " she said softly, " how greatly I have under-rated
the beauty of the dusk ! To submit to dwell in the border-

686 SIR RICHARD CALMADY

land, to stand on the dim bridge, thus, between day and nighty,
demands perhaps the very finest courage conceivable. You
have shown me, Julius, how exquisite and holy a thing it is.
— And, as to her whom you have so faithfully loved, I think,
could she know, she would thank you very deeply for never
telling her the truth. She would entreat you to keep your
secret to the end. But to remain near her, to let her seek
counsel of you when in perplexity or distress, to talk with her
both of those you and she love, and have loved, and of the
promise of fair things beyond and above our present seeing —
pacing with her at times — even as you and I, dear friend, pace
together here to-night — amid the restrained and solemn beauty
of the dusk. Would she not do this ? "

" It is enough that you have done it for her, Katherine,"
he answered. " With your ruling I am wholly, unendingly
content."

" Perhaps Dickie and Honoria's dear works of mercy and
the noonday tide of energy which flows through the house^
have caused us to see less of each other than of old," Lady
Calmady continued with a charming lightness. " That is a
mistake needing correction. The young to the young, dear
Julius. You and I, who go at a quieter pace, will enjoy our
peaceful friendship to the full. I shall not tire of your com-
pany, I promise you, if you do not of mine. Long may you
be spared to me. God keep you, most loyal friend. Good-
night."

Then Lady Calmady, deeply touched, yet unmoved from
her altitude of thankfulness and calm, musing of many mat-
ters and the working out of them to a beneficent and noble
end, slowly went the length of the terrace to where, at the
foot of the steps of the garden-hall, Richard still sat. As she
came near he held out his hand to her.

" Dear, sweet mother," he said, " how I like to see you
walk in that stately fashion, the whole of you — body, mind,
and spirit, somehow evident — gathered up within the delicious
compass of yourself! As far back as I can remember any-
thing. I remember that. When I watched you it always-
made me feel safe. It seemed more like music heard, some-
how, than something seen."

" Dickie, Dickie," she exclaimed^ flushing a little, " don't
make me vain in my old age ! "

THE NEW HEAVEN AND NEW EARTH 687

" But it's true," he said. "And why shouldn't one tell the
pretty truths as well as the plain ones ? — Isn't it a positively
divine night ? Look at the moon just clearing the top of the
firs there ! It is good to be alive. Mother — may I say it ? —
I am very grateful to you for having brought me into the
world."

"Ah ! but, my poor darling — " Katherine cried.

" No, no," he said, " put that out of your dear head once
and for all. I am grateful, being as I am, grateful for every-
thing, it being as it is. I don't believe I would have any-
thing— not anything save those four years when I left you —
altered, even if I could. I've found my work, and it enlarges
its borders in all manner of directions ; and it prospers. And
I have money to put it through. And I have that boy. He's
a dear little chap, and it is wonderfully good of Uncle Roger
and Mary to give him to me. But he's getting a trifle too
fond of horses. I can't break poor, old Chifney's heart ; but
when his days are numbered, those of the stables — as far as
training racers goes — are numbered likewise, I think. I'll
keep on the stud farm. But I grow doubtful about the rest. I
wish it wasn't so, but so it is. Sport is changing hands, pass-
ing from those of romance into those of commerce. — Well,
the stables served their turn. They helped to bring me
through. But now perhaps they're a little out of the picture."

Richard drew her hand nearer and kissed it, leaning back in
his chair, and looking up at her.

"And I have you — " he said, "you most perfect of
mothers. — And — ah ! here comes Honoria ! "

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RICHELIEU. A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G. P.
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In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, "Richelieu," and was
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In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great car-
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DARNLEY. A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey»
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In point of publication, "Darnley" is that work by Mr. James which
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IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING. A Romance of the American Revolution.

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Good Fiction Worth Reading.

A series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the fiel<5
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WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII.
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HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Caro-
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Among the old favorites in the field of what Is known as historical fic-
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The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread
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Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be
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THE PEARL OP ORR'S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By
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Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" Is ever new; a book
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For sale hy all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the pub*
Ushers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 52-58 Duane St., New York.

41 ^

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